Community Care,
Not Coercion

Educational resources, articles, and opportunities to contribute to a growing resistance
to involuntary commitment directives in New York City and nationally

On November 29, New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan to remove unhoused people with untreated mental illness issues from the city’s streets and subways through the process of involuntary hospitalization as a way to prioritize safety and aid those who are suffering. This directive is the latest example of an expansion of coercive and carceral mental health policy across the country, including CARE Courts in California.

Not only are involuntary hospitalizations an ineffective “solution” for the deeply structural issues of houselessness and mental health — they will result in further traumatization and harm to individuals and communities. These policy decisions will disproportionately affect multiply marginalized community members. They are a completely transparent move to further criminalize poverty, exert control over people experiencing distress, and to punish people for not having a social safety net that the state has failed to provide. Rather than continually investing in police-oriented crisis models that don’t address root causes, what we really need is to invest in actual care systems that prevent crisis.

At IDHA, we hold space for all of the emotions that accompany this ongoing spread of carceral mental health policies and practices. We also want to uplift some hope. Because amid the regressive rhetoric, a growing number of people are growing aware of the nature of a mental health system that operates on logics of fear and control, rather than genuine safety and healing. What we are experiencing in part is a lack of imagination. We often hear: “If this system isn’t working, what do we build in its place?” The good news is that we already know the answers to these questions. So many of us are already out here doing this work in the community, including many of our IDHA faculty, past and present.

This resource page aims to uplift existing resources from within and outside of IDHA that will help you learn new skills and strategies, as well as unlearn unhelpful and carceral mentalities, alongside a growing community of people who are committing to meet crisis head on with care, compassion, and understanding.

No More Carceral Mental Health Services: Fighting Back Against the NYC Involuntary Commitment Directive

On December 14, The Network to Advance Abolitionist Social Work hosted a critical Instagram Live conversation pushing back against the NYC involuntary commitment directive. IDHA board member Jay Stevens was joined by Interrupting Criminalization fellow Maria Thomas and University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work professor Nev Jones to discuss the deeply carceral nature of Mayor Adams’ directive, connect the dots around how this action mirrors regressive mental health policy across the country, share ways to educate and interrupt from our roles within and outside the system, and uplift strategies for how we can ALL move away from carceral mental health frameworks and towards truly liberatory mental health care.

Watch the recording here.

Crossroads of Crisis: Dreams & Strategies for Collective Care

IDHA’s current Fall 2022-Spring 2023 training series, Crossroads of Crisis, seeks to reimagine the crisis continuum – interrogating what crisis is, where it comes from, and how to respond to it with curiosity and compassion. Over the course of 8 classes, we will ground our learning in the voices of lived experience and approach the theme of crisis from multiple lenses and dimensions. Drawing inspiration and lessons from current community-based efforts, we will practice how to disrupt paradigms of coercion, create personal codes of ethics, and attune to the needs of those we support in professional and nonprofessional roles.

Enroll today in the full series and automatically receive the recording and resources from any classes that already took place live. CE credits are available.

Self-paced courses: Crisis as Catalyst & Cultivating Community

In Fall 2021, IDHA’s Crisis as Catalyst training series resists calls to return to normal in a supposed post-pandemic world, and invites us to instead center a vision of radical transformation: moving from healing or fixing what is broken to cultivating what could be. In Spring 2022, Cultivating Community sought to shine a light on the essential role of community, connection, and relationship in building care systems that center collective liberation. Both of these series are now available for self-paced enrollment.

Browse our self-paced course library to learn more about, and enroll in, any of these classes.

As part of an end-of-year promotion, both series are available for just $50! Enroll by December 31, 2022 to save up to 50% on Crisis as Catalyst (5 classes) or Cultivating Community (4 classes).

Decarcerating Care

Since September 2020, IDHA’s Decarcerating Care discussion series has reached more than 8k people with urgent dialogue about alternatives to policing that are rooted in the lived experience of mental health service users and survivors. We have explored how to maintain the safety and health of our communities while preserving the rights and autonomy of those in crisis; the ways in which services and "reforms" inherently uphold the ongoing coercion and control of marginalized communities; concrete steps and tools providers can take to decarcerate their practice; and how systems of surveillance intersect with mental health and disability.

Watch the previous panels on IDHA’s YouTube channel, and check out our extensive resource page for even more reading and watching on this topic.