Sponsors (7)
Creates an HHS-led panel to recommend training, staffing, assessment tools, data standards, and protocols to better integrate 9-1-1 and 9-8-8 crisis responses and reduce unnecessary law-enforcement dispatches.
The bill shifts crisis response toward health‑focused, better‑matched care with ongoing oversight and training, improving safety and equity for people in crisis while imposing implementation costs, capacity challenges in underserved areas, privacy risks, and short‑term operational strain.
People experiencing behavioral health crises (including those with mental health or substance use conditions and people with disabilities) are more likely to be diverted from law enforcement to appropriate crisis care through integrated transfer protocols and standardized assessment tools, reducing unnecessary arrests and harm.
9‑1‑1/9‑8‑8 dispatchers and callers (including racial and ethnic minority communities) will get faster, better‑matched responses and fewer biased or inappropriate interventions because dispatch personnel receive training in evidence‑based practices and cultural competency and use standardized assessment tools.
Local and state governments will have improved oversight and updated guidance for crisis response through standardized data collection, protected reporting, and a standing advisory panel with staggered terms to refresh recommendations regularly.
Local and state 9‑1‑1 centers and taxpayers may face significant new costs to implement training, staffing, and upgraded data systems required by the reforms.
People in rural and underserved communities may experience delays or limited benefit because community crisis capacity must be built out before calls can be reliably shifted away from law enforcement.
People experiencing behavioral health crises and those with disabilities risk exposure of sensitive health information if the new detailed outcome data collection and reporting protections are insufficient.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Official title: To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to convene a panel to issue recommendations relating to the training requirements and protocols for 9-1-1 dispatchers, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 3, 2026 by Becca Balint · Last progress September 3, 2026
Creates an HHS-led advisory panel, working with the Attorney General, to develop and update recommendations so 9-1-1 dispatchers respond appropriately to behavioral health crises and to improve integration or transfer between 9-1-1 and the 9-8-8 crisis line. The panel must include experts, people with lived experience, and officials; produce guidance on training, staffing, standardized needs-assessment tools, data collection standards that protect privacy, and alternatives to law enforcement; and submit reports to Congress with updates at least every five years. The panel is exempt from a typical advisory-committee termination rule and must coordinate with SAMHSA and other federal agencies when developing standards and reporting. Membership terms are staggered five-year appointments by the HHS Secretary.