Now Launching a Team of Social Workers in Staten Island & South Brooklyn!
B-HEARD is expanding—and we’re hiring Social Workers to join our teams in Staten Island and South Brooklyn. You’ll bring clinical expertise directly into the community, responding alongside FDNY EMS to people experiencing behavioral health emergencies and helping connect New Yorkers to appropriate care and community resources.
Join B-HEARD and help shape the next chapter of health-centered crisis response in New York City.
Now Hiring Social Workers
Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, known as B-HEARD, is a ground-breaking, health-centered response to 911 mental health calls.
B-HEARD teams include FDNY Emergency Medical Technicians/Paramedics and a mental health professional from NYC Health + Hospitals that are dispatched as first responders to people experiencing a mental health emergency.
B-HEARD is part of New York City’s commitment to treat mental health crises as public health problems, not public safety issues. B-HEARD teams are jointly operated by the New York City Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services and NYC Health + Hospitals, with oversight from the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health.
The goals of the B-HEARD pilot program are:
- Route 911 mental health calls to a health-centered B-HEARD response whenever it is appropriate to do so.
- Increase connection to community-based care, reduce unnecessary transports to hospitals, and reduce unnecessary use of police resources.
B-HEARD is now hiring licensed Social Workers to join their teams!
What you will do:
- The program currently operates 7 days a week, between the hours of 9am and 1am. Social workers work during 8-hour shifts.
- B-HEARD Teams use their physical and mental health expertise, and experience in crisis response, to de-escalate emergency situations and provide immediate care. Social Workers combine clinical assessment, brief treatment, and linkage to appropriate levels of care.
- Teams have the expertise to respond to a range of behavioral health problems, such as suicidal ideation, mental health conditions, including serious mental illness, substance use/misuse, as well as physical health problems, which can be exacerbated by or mask mental health problems.
- If the person requires emergency medical services, the EMTs or paramedics on the B-HEARD Team are able to provide emergency medical care and call for an ambulance transport to a hospital.
- Typically, B-HEARD teams do not respond to calls involving individuals who require immediate transport to a hospital, present risk of imminent harm to themselves or others, or get deployed in situations where EMS call-takers do not have enough information to assess risk of imminent harm.
Training: Social Workers and EMTs/Paramedics are trained together over the course of several weeks, prior to responding to 911 mental health calls. Training will provide de-escalation and other clinical skills necessary to ensure team members are able to support and connect New Yorkers to appropriate levels of care.
Learn more about B-HEARD
Contact: BHEARDjobs@nychhc.org