The best thing about the revamped regional mental-health services is that they offer a simple, logical way into the system for people in crisis — at a time in people’s lives when simple and logical are extremely important. The overseeing state department and the area mental-health providers have given Penobscot, Hancock, Piscataquis and Washington counties a valuable service.

The four counties, collectively, are one of seven mental-health regions in the state. As with regions in Southern Maine, the one covering this area brought together existing providers to form a seamless network of care. Commuity Health and Counseling Services, Washington County Psychotherapy Associates and The Together Place will cooperate in the Northeast Crisis Service, which will provide 24-hour-a-day care to anyone in the region. All seven mental-health regions are expected to have similar services within the next year or so.

The new system eventually will work like this: A person having mental difficulties — from depression to schizophrenia — can call or have someone call a single 800 number to gain access to the system. The person can be counseled over the phone, or a crisis worker will visit a home and get further direction from an on-call doctor. At that point the person may be able to stay at home or be encouraged to go to what is known as a respite home, or, if more serious, to a crisis home or, as a final measure, to an institution.

Simply by making the system less daunting, the service providers will encourage people who need help to get it. The change turns the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services from a confusing collection of services to an understandable, connected set of services along a continuum. And because this service covers the whole range of severity in mental illness, shortcomings in service should be immediately apparent.

This is a milestone for mental-health services in Maine. If the system delivers as promised, the state will be dramatically better served, and communities can start getting at problems such as the too-high suicide rate among adolescents and the homeless population, where good and useful lives are wasted because of a lack of adequate care.