Upcoming Events

This webinar explores recovery within children, youth, and family (CYF) crisis systems through a System of Care (SOC) framework that emphasizes healing, stability, and long-term wellbeing. Participants will examine how recovery support extends beyond crisis resolution to help youth and families regain control, strengthen coping capacity, and maintain functional stability over time. The webinar highlights how continuity of care, community responsive support, and firsthand-experience partnerships create pathways that reduce relapse, prevent re-crisis, and support sustained recovery across the crisis continuum.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the core elements of recovery-oriented crisis systems for children and youth.
• Identify strategies that support stabilization, continuity of care, and long-term stability after a crisis.
• Explain the role of families, youth, and peer supports in guiding recovery.
• Apply trauma-informed and community responsive recovery practices.
• Identify when and how to collaborate with youth and family peers to promote recovery-oriented care.

Speakers:

• Gail Cormier, MS, Director of Technical Assistance for National Federation of Families
• Elizabeth Manley, LSW, Senior Advisor for Health & Behavioral Health Policy at UConn Innovations Institute

Immediately following this webinar, there will be an Office Hour session from 3:30-4 PM (ET). 

When emergency and first responders are called to a crisis situation, the needs of the individual and community may extend past the initial intervention. This webinar will explore strategies for building collaborative post-crisis support systems that ensure continuity of care and strengthen trust between law enforcement and community providers. Participants will learn how effective partnerships will overcome the gap between law enforcement response and on-going services and explore how cross-sector partnerships can remove gaps in post-crisis engagement, reduce repeat crises, and build long-term resilience.

Participants will gain practical insights into the roles and responsibilities of first responders and crisis responders in post-crisis engagement, identify common challenges and facilitators to maintaining collaboration, and learn actionable strategies to strengthen partnerships that support recovery and community well-being.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the role of emergency and first responders in post-crisis engagement
• Identify challenges and facilitators to sustaining post-crisis collaboration across sectors
• Apply practical strategies to strengthen cross-system collaboration that builds community resilience

Speakers:

• Emily Anderson MSW, LCSW, Manager, Co-Responder Services, Colorado Behavioral Health Administration
• SGT Amil Alwan, Community Service Team Lead, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety
• Joshua Amaro, Former School Resource Officer, Windsor Police Department

There will be an information exchange with the presenters addressing questions submitted live and during the webinar registration process.

Faith communities are often the first place individuals and families turn to when they are struggling with emotional distress, trauma, or crisis. This webinar explores how 988 crisis systems can build meaningful, sustained partnerships with a broad range of faith-based organizations, including congregations, spiritual and religious leaders, houses of worship, chaplaincy programs, and faith-rooted nonprofits. Together, we will examine how these partners can help promote awareness of 988; support individuals in having someone to contact, someone to respond, and a safe place for help; and strengthen post-crisis follow-up and healing. Participants will leave with practical strategies, tools, and examples that honor community, spirituality, and firsthand experience while advancing access to crisis care.

Learning Objectives: 

• Define an expansive understanding of “faith community,” including congregations, spiritual leaders, faith-specific traditions, chaplaincy programs, indigenous healing providers, and faith-rooted community organizations.
• Describe the concrete roles faith-based partners can play across the 988 crisis continuum (outreach and education, crisis response support, and post-crisis follow-up and healing).
• Identify strategies to initiate, nurture, and sustain collaborative relationships with faith-based partners that honor the strength of community, spirituality, and community-defined practices.

Speakers: 

• Dr. Monty Burks, United States Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS)
• Miguel Flores, Holistic Wellness Counseling and Consultant Services
• Rabbi Sandra Cohen, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Colorado, Denver
• Dr. Glen Milstein, City College of New York

In the high‑stakes moments of crisis response, ethical clarity is essential. This session grounds participants in core ethical principles: autonomy, justice, beneficence, nonmaleficence, fidelity, and veracity and demonstrates how to apply them in real‑world decision points across the crisis continuum. We’ll examine scenarios such as balancing a 988 caller’s autonomy with duty‑to‑report and imminent‑risk obligations; making on‑scene determinations about involuntary transport or escalation; and navigating admission decisions at crisis receiving facilities when capacity is limited. Throughout, we’ll emphasize trauma‑informed, recovery‑oriented practices that protect dignity and build trust with people and communities, urban and rural alike. The session aligns with SAMHSA’s three pillars of crisis care: someone to talk to, someone to respond, and a safe place to go—and is designed for crisis counselors, mobile crisis teams, supervisors, ED/hospital partners, and justice‑involved responders seeking practical, principled guidance for ethically complex situations.

Learning Objectives:

• Apply core ethical principles (autonomy, justice, beneficence, nonmaleficence, fidelity, veracity) to decision‑making in crisis care across phone, mobile response, and facility settings.
• Explain how trauma‑informed, recovery‑oriented approaches safeguard individual autonomy while meeting safety and legal obligations in crisis encounters.
• Identify and describe challenges and the potential ethical implications of crisis response in rural areas, including access constraints, transportation, escalation risks, and service availability.

Immediately following this webinar, there will be an Office Hour session from 2-2:30 PM (ET).