Right Response Colorado

Right Response Colorado works at the intersection of people with unmet health needs and the criminal legal system, advocating for evidence-based health solutions instead of punishment or incarceration. The coalition brings together people and families with lived and living experience, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and academics around shared policy priorities that shift Colorado from relying on police and prisons for unmet health needs to a fully-funded health care system.

I contribute to Right Response Colorado as a community-engaged researcher, drug policy leader, and community organizer, helping ensure impacted voices shape policy and systems change at the intersection of behavioral health and the criminal legal system.

Visit rightresponsecolorado.org →

Focus areas

Community-led crisis response
Advancing voluntary, community-based responses to behavioral health crises that do not rely on police, arrest, jail, or coercion as the default pathway to care.

Non-carceral behavioral health access
Expanding access to mental health care stabilization, treatment, recovery supports, housing connections, and services people can choose before crisis becomes criminalized.

Harm Reduction and overdose prevention infrastructure
Building community-based overdose prevention systems grounded in dignity, compassion, and the leadership of the people most impacted.

Lived and living expertise leadership
Building pathways for people with lived and living expertise to step into policy leadership through mentorship, political education, testimony preparation, storytelling, and hands-on advocacy.

Diversion from arrest, prosecution, and incarceration
Shifting reliance away from criminal legal responses toward evidence-based public health interventions, treatment and care.

Policy and funding shifts toward care
Moving public dollars, policy, and implementation away from punishment and toward community-led, voluntary, non-carceral solutions that meet people where they are.