Description: In this talk, Dr. Watson, a nationally-recognized expert on mental health crisis response, will provide history and context on different models of community response to mental health crises, reflect on gaps and opportunities for transformative interventions, and weigh in on the implications of of the new 988 (suicide prevention/crisis response) hotline. The intended audience for the colloquium includes researchers, policy makers and administrators, clinicians, service users, family and community advocates, and students.
Bio: Dr. Amy Watson is a professor in the Social Work Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Dr. Watson has worked extensively on issues involving persons with serious mental illnesses that come in contact with the criminal justice system. During the past two decades, her research has focused on police encounters with persons with mental illnesses and the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model. She has also conducted research on mental health courts and prison re-entry programs. Her current work is looking at models to reduce/eliminate the role of law enforcement in mental health crisis response.
Dr. Watson has been actively involved in court and law enforcement advisory groups and served on the compliance team for the Department of Justice settlement agreement with the City of Portland (OR)/Portland Police Bureau. Earlier in her career, she worked as a probation officer on a team serving clients with serious mental illnesses and as a forensic social worker/mitigation specialist working on death penalty cases.