NARPA Fall 2020 Webinar series >> November 2020:

Rights-Based Alternatives to Police Response for Mental Health Crises: A World-Wide Perspective

In November 2020, NARPA, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, and Correct Crisis Intervention Today-NYC (CCIT-NYC), co-sponsored a two-part series with discussions of police violence in communities of color and against people with disabilities.

NYLPI hosted Part I, entitled "Establishing a Non-Police Response to Mental Health Crises: The Needless Killing of Miguel Richards by NYC Police," on November 12. Watch it here.

NARPA hosted Part II, entitled “Rights-Based Alternatives to Police Response for Mental Health Crises: A World-Wide Perspective,” on Monday, November 16. Watch it here.

Description of the November 12 Presentation: Centered on the body-camera footage of the police killing of Miguel Richards while he experienced a mental health crisis in his home, this roundtable will underscore the problems with police response to mental health crises and the need for reform.

Moderator: Marinda van Dalen, Senior Attorney, Disability Justice and Health Justice Programs at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest

Presenters: Tim Black, Operations Coordinator, CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets); Rojini Haar, emergency medicine physician and medical advisor, Physicians for Human Rights; Christina Sparrock, Peer Advocate

Description of the November 16 Presentation: This roundtable will highlight alternatives to current methods of police response to mental health crises and present strategies to implement non-police responses.

Moderator, Ruth Lowenkron, Director of the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI)

Presenters: Christina Sparrock, Peer Advocate; Rachel Bromberg, Canadian National Coordinator of the International Mobile Services Association; Ana Florence, clinical psychologist and postdoctoral associate, Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, with extensive practice in Brazil; Peter Stastny, a psychiatrist and co-founder of the International Networks Towards Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR)

Check NARPA's website at www.narpa.org and the NARPA Facebook group page for details about the final workshop in this Fall series, to be held in early December... And stay tuned for announcements about NARPA's plans for 2021!

The recording of the second webinar in NARPA’s Fall series, "Olmstead in the Age of COVID," is now available on NARPA's YouTube channel.