Dear Student Affairs colleagues,
Last month, we provided updates on two 3-5-year initiatives from the Transforming the Student Experience priority area for the Student Affairs Strategic Plan. Today’s message highlights an initiative from the Health Justice & Holistic Well-Being priority area.
As part of this work, we have five Health Justice and Holistic Wellbeing initiatives, including Campus Mobile Crisis Responses (CMCR). This priority area grounds our divisional work in two significant ways:
- Health justice is about ensuring everyone has what they need to be healthy and about the intentional dismantling of interpersonal, cultural, policy, and structural barriers to accessing highly quality and culturally competent support and care.
- Wellbeing is a multidimensional and dynamic process that empowers individuals and their communities to pursue their goals throughout their UC Berkeley experience and beyond. Wellbeing supports individual fulfillment, inspires community engagement, and requires a collective commitment to advancing health justice.
As part of redesigning the campus’ mental health response, an important component of the Chancellor’s Reimagining Campus & Community Safety Initiative, the CMCR team will become the first responders for mental health crisis support and related wellness checks. The CMCR team provides culturally responsive trauma-informed care to students, faculty, and staff experiencing mental health crises. CMCR is an interdisciplinary team whose mission is to provide comprehensive crisis intervention, assessment, and evaluation to reduce the need for police and emergency medical services when possible. In collaboration with campus partners, CMCR provides non-emergent crisis care and urgent postvention services and connects students, faculty, and staff to resources that will enhance their success and well-being at UC Berkeley.
CMCR was soft-launched on April 4, 2023, and has been in service Tuesday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. So far, we have responded to 42 calls for services (from the University of California Police Department, Center for Support & Intervention, Residential Life, and Counseling & Psychological Services), including 5150 evaluations (9), wellness checks (17), postvention support (6), and consult calls (10). We currently only have mental health clinicians responding to calls. However, 2 EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) are starting this month. We have also hired an EMT/Peer Coordinator to support the development of CMCR and Outreach peer programming, allowing for more peer outreach and support services to be integrated into our program. We look forward to extending our days of service in the spring semester.
Congratulations to initiative leaders AJ Kaur (CMCR Manager) and Claytie Davis III (Student Mental Health Co-Director), as well as the rest of the initiative team, for their excellent progress and great work thus far: Cedric Bowser (CMCR), Lindsay Felten (CMCR) Hailey Lopez (CSI), Joey Williams/Sabrina Reich (UCPD), Dale Morrow (Res Life), Russ Ballati (Business Process Management Office), Ivor Emmanuel (Berkeley International Office), Laura Alie (Student Mental Health), Marilyn De La Cruz (Disabled Students’ Program), Melody Heller (University Health Services), Kiyoko Thomas (Basic Needs), and Camarin Sanford (Student Mental Health).
Sincerely,
Layla Naranjo (She/Her/Ella)
Executive Director, People and Administrative Services
Division of Student Affairs
Jo Mackness (she/her/hers)
Assistant Vice Chancellor & Chief Operating Officer
Division of Student Affairs
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