Service through a statewide phone support line for people who are experiencing mental health issues won’t be reduced — for now.
The Intentional Warm Line service offers peer-to-peer support for noncrisis mental health systems, and members of Maine’s mental health community were strongly critical of a plan that would have cut it back from a 24-hour service to one that operated only 7 hours a day. They were particularly concerned about rural areas where people have limited access to transportation.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services had proposed a new state contract that would have reduced the hours. But now it has decided to cancel that contract.
In the cancellation notice, the agency says it anticipates reissuing the new contract at a future date. It’s not clear what that contract’s terms will be.
