For Mental Health Awareness Month, we’ve got special events and opportunities to share your voices and help advocate for policies to improve the lives of individuals and families. This week, we’re spotlighting crisis response and services. A mental health crisis deserves a mental health response. Individuals and families should be assured they will get the right care, in the right place, at the right time. We are working every day to ensure better outcomes.
Learn about and sign our petition in support of Assembly Bill 1065 to help improve the outcomes of crisis calls involving people who are mentally ill. AB 1065 would allow taxpayers to make voluntary contributions on their California tax returns to support much-needed law enforcement training programs to better equip them to engage safely with individuals living with a mental illness. NAMI California’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program is a national model for community policing that brings together law enforcement, mental health providers, hospital emergency departments, and individuals with mental illness and their families to aid and improve law enforcement’s response to those experiencing a mental health crisis. Individuals, families, and our communities will all benefit from this much-needed program.
Learn about and sign our petition in support of Assembly Bill 1331 to establish a new position at the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to improve our crisis care system. People in a behavioral health crisis too often face arrest, involuntary detention, multiple hospitalizations, homelessness, and even early death. In many communities, behavioral health crisis services are delivered too late — either by law enforcement or in hospital emergency departments. Too few people get the intensive follow-up care needed to prevent a crisis from recurring. A new position at the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) would focus on establishing and monitoring a comprehensive crisis care system and ensure that individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis get the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
Find out about Assembly Bill 988 to establish the “9-8-8” emergency response system for Californians experiencing a mental health crisis.
Take our 30-Second Survey on crisis response. Have you had to access emergency response/crisis services to get help for yourself or a loved one? How was the response? What could have improved the experience?