Birthed from California’s Anti Police-Terror Project, Mental Health First started in Sacramento before expanding to Oakland in 2021. From volunteer medics to mental health specialists, the program dispatches help to people in crisis, including mental health, substance use, and interpersonal violence.
Many Mental Health First workers are survivors themselves, leading with conflict resolution, de-escalation, and medical expertise. This is critical work. In 2022, 90% of adults said they believe the U.S. is experiencing a mental health crisis.
Carceral and ableist logic tells us that people in crisis shouldn’t have decision-making power. And that without incarceration and the way hospitalization currently functions, we’d all be in danger.
But MH First co-founder Asantewaa Boykin describes their approach as “self-determined crisis management.” Instead of telling people what they need in order to control them, the goal is figuring out what would make a person in crisis feel safe.
Containment and control center the non-disabled during crisis. Similar to sweeping unhoused people off the streets or criminalizing the poor, the norm is to displace “undesirables” from the public sphere, so everyone else can feel comfortable.
But being centered in your own mental health treatment challenges that norm. Forward-thinking alternatives to policing like MH First don’t just replace cops with professionals and peers. They reframe and redefine how we can approach safety and disability.