“Get the Police Out of the Mental Health Calls”: Community Perspectives on Alternatives Response Services

• In Event: Perspectives on Non-criminal Justice Responses and Interventions

Abstract

Cities across the United States have started to reassess how they respond to people in crisis and to pilot new initiatives that dispatch behavioral health specialists and medics rather than law enforcement to individuals experiencing mental health, substance use, or houselessness crises. Such alternative response programs can have numerous benefits, especially when they are developed in collaboration with directly impacted communities. Grounded in a community-university research partnership, this poster will present data from an ongoing study of emergency response services and alternative approaches in a mid-sized Southern Appalachian city. In community focus groups, participants were asked to share their experiences with emergency response services, to imagine alternative approaches, and to reflect on how such approaches could benefit their communities. Preliminary findings suggest that traditional emergency response services are often misaligned with community members’ physical and mental health needs. Alternative approaches that involve mental health professionals and peers with similar lived experiences were viewed as particularly desirable. Participants identified saving lives, reducing social stigma, and increasing access to mental health services as key potential benefits.

Authors

• Elizabeth I. Johnson, University of Tennessee

• Brittany Bonner, Knoxville HEART

• Evan Cole Green, University of Tennessee

• Dorian L. McCoy, University of South Carolina

• Nicky Skinner, Knoxville HEART