Learning from Persons with Lived Experience in 911 Crisis Response
To better understand how people experiencing a mental health crisis may want to engage with 911 and other crisis response services, the Meadows Institute and Fountain House partnered to conduct interviews with people living with serious mental illness.
Project Details
Each day across the country, more than 32,000 calls to 911 involve someone experiencing a mental health crisis. These calls often involve people feeling overwhelmed, experiencing symptoms of mental illness, or having suicidal thoughts. Yet most 911 call center operators receive little to no specialized training on how to respond to mental health crises, and the training that does exist rarely takes the voices of impacted people into account.
To better understand how people experiencing a mental health crisis may want to engage with 911 and other crisis response services, the Meadows Institute and Fountain House partnered to conduct interviews with people living with serious mental illness. Unlike many studies in the field, the project was co-led by Fountain House members with lived experience of serious mental illness who helped design protocols, facilitate interviews, and analyze findings.
To download the full report, click here.