Beyond Punishment: Anti-Carceral, Abolitionist to Crisis Response in Mental Health

Course overview

Participants will be able to define carceral and abolitionist frameworks in mental health crisis response, will be able to describe the harms of police involvement, involuntary hospitalization, and coercive interventions, will be able to apply harm reduction principles to suicidality, self-harm, and distress states, will be able to identify how compliance-based language can perpetuate stigma, re-traumatization, and systemic oppression in clinical practice, will be able to describe community-based alternatives and peer-led crisis response models, and will be able to implement de-escalation techniques that prioritize autonomy, dignity, and safety