Natonal Justice Project - Alternative First Responders

Good to see this has some advocates @Appleblossom .

I hope that it can become that all MH-related calls/situations will have a MH-specialist (be that peer worker, social worker, counsellor, psych, pdoc, or other MH-trained person) as a lead support for the person in need, and the other services only there to ensure safety (e.g. ambo for physical needs and police for physical safety of staff or keeping bystanders away, etc).

I'd love to learn more about what they propose as the ideal model 😊, I just don't currently have the time to read! But I am very interested!

https://cheekmedia.substack.com/p/centring-community-and-care-why-australia

Chloe is lead at National Justice Project

AFMH are running a webinar

https://www.afmh.org.au/2026_webinar_alternative_first_responders

@AlwaysMyself @chibam @Dogman not sure if you are interested...

Thanks for posting this topic and also the link @Appleblossom it will be interesting to hear what they have to say

Thanks @Appleblossom 😊 Read the linked article from Cheek Media. 100% agree.

But the hard thing for me I guess is... what is our call to action as individuals that are not in positions of influence? What is the most effective method of showing support for this to those who do have influence? (e.g. does sending the information/links with a message of supporting it to your local MPs have effect? I honestly have no idea. This is a genuine question. I don't know other way to show support, other than if they have a petition that they are submitting to a government body)

Thanks, @Appleblossom 🙂

I've never had to engage with emergency services in this way myself, so I can't speak as to what their doing right, what their doing wrong, and what needs to change.

Reading through that article, I can't help but notice that it seems to completely dodge the predictable questions about what effects these initiatives will have on the general public. And IMHO, that's what's gonna really stymie these initiatives from gaining any traction. Anyone who wants to sell an alternative approach to police intervention will need to be able to convince the masses that the general public will be no less safe, and no more burdened under this new system then the old one. To do that, the first need to acknowledge and address the concerns that the general public have. Like so many other advocacy pieces for this sort of change, this article simply ignores the concerns of the average citizen.

Unpalatable as it may be, I believe that the vast majority of citizens believe that the safety of the general public should be the paramount priority of any mental health incident response system. They aren't willing to gamble with it, not even on a low-risk venture; they would argue that any risk is too much risk. They don't care about the discomfort or distress of "mentally ill people", they are more interested in insuring that "normal" people are spared any potential discomfort or distress. The everyday rational citizens are the ones they can sympathize with.

So any systematic change that has any hope of actually being enacted will need to be designed to insure that it will impose no consequences upon the general public; and it's advocates will need to be able to convincingly demonstrate that this is true.

Not sure whether I'm being a realist or just a pessimist about this, but those are my concerns.

Thanks @chibam I think they are fair concerns.

@AlwaysMyself

It might help.

I am hoping being on the Sane forum, is one way to get people thinking and questioning. I also network...

@Appleblossom @AlwaysMyself

Police tend to escalate the situation causing less safety for everybody. Police are not trained to provide health care. There’s been quite a bit of research on this.

https://www.latrobe.edu.au/research/ceri/documents/9598fb011273b21600fedf6d9881fdc6205a3bdb.pdf

https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/3560

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2024.2372354

Theres heaps of research all pretty much finding police shouldn’t be present.

@Appleblossom I subscribed to the zoom event and became a member.

Kind of following on from @chibam

To get off the ground, it has to make financial sense, or rely on philanthropy

So it has to save money compared to 000 calls. Or it'll unfortunately never gain traction in the real world

@Cuddlebear Those articles are quality, recent and Australian. Thank you very much.

Yes, recognising the difference between anxiety in a panic attack and aggression seems tricky for police.

I am not sure I will recover from witnessing what I have now seen, and feel badly betrayed, tho of course, there are still the good ones

Support button not working