Johns Hopkins University recently introduced the Behavioral Health Crisis Support Team (BHCST), a pilot program aiming to aid those experiencing behavioral health crises on campus. The team partners behavioral health clinicians with trained public safety officers to respond to and de-escalate behavioral health-related calls, conduct field assessments and follow up with cases, among other services.

The pilot program has launched on the Baltimore university's Homewood campus, and Johns Hopkins plans to eventually extend it to a 24/7 service across all campuses within the city.

BHCST is currently comprised of three recently hired behavioral health clinicians and a team of public safety officers. Training for team members included trauma-informed victim response, de-escalation best practices and diversity, equity and inclusion training.

More information on the program can be found here.