Alternative Mental Health Crisis Response Panel

Just in time for Mental Health Awareness Month, join us on Thursday, May 21st at 6 PM ET / 5 PM CT / 3 PM PT for a virtual panel discussion on the new joint report by Human Rights Watch, the Center for Racial and Disability Justice, and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest: "Self-Determination is the Pathway to Liberation": Alternative Mental Health Crisis Response in the United States.

Each year, US police kill more than a thousand people, and people with mental health conditions and people of color, especially those at the intersection of race and disability, are killed and harmed at disproportionate rates. As federal, state, and local jurisdictions move toward increasingly coercive approaches to mental health crisis response, rights-respecting, non-police alternatives are crucial.

The panel will discuss what rights-respecting, non-police crisis response looks like, the challenges these programs face, and what it will take to sustain and expand them. Panelists include program leaders, peer advocates, and the report's authors.

Moderator: Jennifer Mathis, Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

Panelists:

• Cat Brooks, Anti-Police-Terror Project / Mental Health First

• Travers Kurr, New Orleans Health Department

• Christina Sparrock, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest

• William Juhn, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest

• Jordyn Jensen, Center for Racial and Disability Justice, UCLA School of Law

  
  

Accessibility: CART captioning and ASL interpretation will be provided.

About the Speakers

Jennifer Mathis is Deputy Director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. She has worked at the Center since 1999 except for two periods of service in the federal government. Between December 2021 and January 2025, Jennifer served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, reviewing the work of the Disability Rights Section, the Special Litigation Section’s disability work, and the work of the Federal Coordination and Compliance Section and the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section. Prior to arriving at DOJ, Jennifer served as Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy at the Bazelon Center. Jennifer uses litigation as well as legislative and administrative policy advocacy to promote equal opportunity for people with disabilities in all areas of life, including community living, health care, housing, employment, education, parental and family rights, voting, and other areas. Jennifer played a key role in coordinating strategy and briefing when the Olmstead case was heard by the Supreme Court and has litigated numerous community integration cases before and after. She also served on the disability community negotiating team that worked with representatives of the business community to craft language that became the ADA Amendments Act and played a lead role in securing passage of the ADAAA. Between 2010 and 2011, Jennifer served as a Special Assistant to Commissioner Chai Feldblum at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, helping to draft regulations implementing the ADA Amendments Act and the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act.

Cat Brooks is a theater artist, writer and community organizer. She hosts KPFA’s Law & Disorder and is a resident artist with Tha Lower Bottom Playaz. Her one-woman show ‘Tasha, about the in-custody murder of Natasha McKenna won Best of The SF Fringe (2017). Her film Bottled Spirits about the violence of gentrification has been nominated for/won multiple awards including Best Narrative Short. She’s the co-founder/executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project and has spent two decades working with impacted communities to radically transform public safety systems in the U.S.

Travers Kurr, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is the Manager of Behavioral Health Programs at the New Orleans Health Department. The Behavioral Health Unit oversees community-based programs supported by federal and local funding which include: the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) Initiative, the New Orleans Mobile Crisis Intervention Unit (MCIU), a Substance Use Mobile Resource Clinic, an Overdose Fatality Review, and Opioid Settlement Funds. Travers began with the Health Department in 2017 as the LEAD Program Coordinator tasked with implementing and overseeing the operations of the pre-booking diversion program. LEAD allows NOPD to divert non-violent, low-level crimes related to underlying and unmet behavioral health needs to intensive case management rather than making an arrest. From 2009 to 2015, Travers worked for UNITY of Greater New Orleans, the lead agency of the continuum of care for homeless services in Orleans and Jefferson Parish. In 2011, he joined their abandoned building outreach team with the goal of finding permanent housing solutions for people squatting in buildings left vacant from Hurricane Katrina. In 2016, he received a Master’s in Social Work from Tulane University and a Master’s in Public Health from Tulane University the following year.

Christina Sparrock is a mental health advocate, crisis response researcher, and policy advisor who leverages her personal experience with a mental health condition to promote disability, racial, and social justice. Ms. Sparrock is an Alternative Crisis Response Researcher at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, where she identifies a growing number of successful non-police crisis response models across the country. She earned her Certification in Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training through the NYC Police Department and Department of Corrections. She also developed a public health crisis response program called Person-Centered Intervention Training (PCIT) Mental Health Response Team, which was the first of its kind in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, now renamed as a Community Wellness Program, and operates in other NYC Parks. Ms. Sparrock serves on the Daniel's Law Task Force, where she reviewed public health crisis response models nationwide and offered recommendations. She  introduced new legislation to replace stigmatizing and harmful terminology that labels people in crisis  as “Emotionally Disturbed Person (EDP)” with person-centered, trauma-informed language, “Person Experiencing an Emotional Crisis (PEC/PEEC).” Ms. Sparrock is a founding member of the NYC Mental Health Collective, a grassroots, member-driven organization that promotes dialogue and empowers New Yorkers to share their stories about the urgent need for equitable mental health services. In 2025, the Collective hosted its second NYC Mental Health Mayoral Candidate Town Hall, where candidates such as Zohran Mamdani, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer, Michael Blake, and others discussed their mental health policies. As a survivor of intimate partner violence, Sparrock is pursuing a Master of Arts in Urban Studies with a focus on Healthcare Policy. Through her efforts, she is committed to creating policies that safeguard women with disabilities, especially those impacted by intimate partner violence. Sparrock has received numerous proclamations and citations for her steadfast advocacy and contributions to various mental health causes.

William Juhn is a Senior Staff Attorney in the Disability Justice Program at NYLPI, where he advocates for the rights of people with disabilities in the areas of education, housing, public transportation, and government programs. He also engages in policy advocacy to remove police from responses to mental health and substance use crises. Prior to joining NYLPI, William worked at a disability rights law firm representing deaf and hard of hearing plaintiffs in anti-discrimination cases. William also worked at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and MinKwon Center for Community Action. William earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, his M.A. from Fudan University, and his B.A. from the University of Michigan. William is currently pursuing an MPA at Baruch College.

Jordyn Jensen is a disabled leader with expertise spanning urban planning, critical disability studies, special education, and community development. Driven by lived experience, her work focuses on non-carceral crisis response models, the criminalization of disability, and systemic inequities at the intersection of disability, race, and gender. Jordyn holds a B.S. in Applied Learning and Development, an M.Ed. in Special Education, and a master’s portfolio in Critical Disability Studies from The University of Texas at Austin. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago.