The Southern California Psychiatric Society (SCPS) and Los Angeles branches of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) including Urban LA, Greater LA County, and Westside LA are partnering with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health to develop alternatives to crisis response. We are collecting real-life behavioral health crisis experiences to gather community stakeholder input on how Mental Health and Law Enforcement may partner to best care for and keep safe individuals with mental illness.
988, the national suicide and crisis lifeline, went live in July 2022 and California passed legislation to fund and develop a continuum of behavioral health crisis response care in September 2022. While the capacity has been inadequate, Los Angeles County has been at the forefront of developing crisis response alternatives to law enforcement for many years and is stepping up resources. We need to develop ways to determine when Mental Health alone is the best response and when Law Enforcement may be needed to respond as well.
We would like to start with your real experiences with behavioral health crises to understand the breadth of issues. Then we will seek further stakeholder feedback on what they would want in a variety of situations.
We will not be sharing any names, emails, or other clearly identifying information with government organizations (Law Enforcement, Department of Mental Health, or otherwise). And, we know that an individual or family's race, ethnicity, age, gender, spoken language, neighborhood, and other factors may influence the care they want and the care they receive. Therefore, any information you are willing to provide may be helpful in developing community-driven responses.
We deeply respect your lived experience and appreciate your time and consideration. If you would prefer to provide this information in another format (by phone, in a language other than English, by email, etc.) or have any questions, please let us know: 310-815-3650
Est. time 10-30 min - this questionnaire could take as few as 10 minutes or as long as 30 minutes depending on how much detail you provide about your experience.
