Excellence and innovation in mental health crisis response - civilian-led and law enforcement-led response models

The Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of Different Mental Health Crisis Response Models

Date: Saturday 5 September 2026

Time: 9am – 5pm

Location: Cloth Hall Court, Quebec St, Leeds LS1 2HA

Price: £60.00 per person (price includes lunch and refreshments)

Led by Jennifer Chambers (Mental Health Legal Advocacy Coalition, Toronto Canada) and Amy Watson (Wayne State University, USA), this interactive day-long session will provide an overview of mental health crisis response models, including those that involve law enforcement and emerging innovations in the alternative/community-based response space. 

The event will provide an overview of the range of and variations among response models (Crisis Intervention Teams, co-response, traditional mobile crisis response, alternative/community-based noncoercive response) and explore how services can be engaged with and accountable to the communities they serve. This will set the stage for research, practice and lived experience-based presentations and discussion. 

Session leaders will present mental health crisis scenarios and facilitate a discussion of how different response models would respond (or not), how they conceptualise the goals of intervention, and their specific considerations and practices. 

The goal of the session is to produce a clearer understanding of how response models vary, what that means to different stakeholders, and how models fit within the crisis response ecosystem.