“Choice is important and crisis care systems need to make the full gamut of services available. Choice means having a variety of professions available, including peers, all of whom are able to provide the level and type of support the person desires. Lots of us have experienced harm, but that does
It’s April 2020–the early days of the Covid pandemic and the height of lockdown in Georgia. A teen who is suicidal shows up to an emergency department twice, but no facility in the state will take him because he has Covid. He’s asymptomatic and will test positive for the next
Handcuffed in the back of a police car after being pepper-sprayed, a nine-year-old in Rochester, New York, is sitting hunched over. Between sobs, she says to the nearby officer, “Please don’t do this to me.” The officer replies, “You did it to yourself, hon.” Nine officers are at the scene, responding
Washington was the first state to propose implementation legislation for 988, the three-digit number for behavioral health emergencies that must be available nationwide on July 16, 2022. Suicidologist Jennifer Stuber, Ph.D., helped craft it. She first heard of 988 on the news. “Just like everyone else,” she says. “I thought, ‘I
Too often, mental health crisis care is a blue light issue…. “Get in; sort it out; it’s done and then go.” COVID-19 is not going away. While Australia basks in being one of the world leaders in controlling the spread of the virus another island nation, the United Kingdom, and its European
