Alternative Mental Health Crisis Response Panel
Thu, May 21
|Zoom (link sent upon registration)
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.
Time & Location
May 21, 2026, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM CDT
Zoom (link sent upon registration)
About the event
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.