Summary

Mental Health First (MH First), a project of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), launched in 2020 in Oakland and Sacramento, CA. MH First is a community-led crisis response hotline outside of the 911 and police system that community members can call when they, or someone in their community, is experiencing a crisis. This evaluation — conducted while the program is on a strategic planning hiatus — takes a close look at MH First’s first five years of operation to assess how the program is working, what impacts it’s had, and what is needed to grow its reach and deepen effectiveness.

Using a mixed-methods process evaluation, we conducted 29 interviews with key stakeholders and analyzed 167 survey responses from community members in Oakland and Sacramento. We found that MH First:

• Is trusted by and rooted in the local communities it serves
• Is building power and self-efficacy in the local and national community through their trainings, technical assistance, and volunteer recruitment
• Provides a strong model nationally that indicates that non-police mental health crisis response programs are practical and possible
• Could increase reliability by expanding their hours of operation to 24/7 and hiring paid staff
• Could grow by focusing on preventative measures and follow-up care, not just crisis management and intervention

Our hope is that this evaluation will not only support the beautiful and essential work of MH First, but also provide lessons for other non-police crisis response programs across the US and inspire public health researchers to take up the mantle of evaluating abolitionist alternatives to policing and imprisonment in our communities.

Recommendations for MH First

1. Continue to prioritize being deeply rooted in and led by community members in Oakland and Sacramento, particularly Black, Indigenous, Latine, and disabled community members who are most impacted by policing
2. Publicly share more stories of success, including robust qualitative and quantitative data analysis
3. Provide preventative care in order to interrupt pathways to crisis situations and follow-up care in order to ensure people have what they need following crisis
4. Expand hours of operation as much as possible to ensure the hotline is accessible and reliable
5. Increase resources and funding for the program, including considerations of whether MH First is willing and able to receive government funding
6. Pass policy and budget allocations that shift money from the carceral state to non-police grassroots response, including to MH First

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