Social Justice-Informed Trauma Treatment & Gender Care

Crisis Care + Support <3

If you are in need of urgent, in-person, mental health crisis support…

Start by clicking this link! Come back here when you’re ready for more resources to get the support you need and deserve ❤

Common Ground 24/7 Resource and Crisis Center (Pontiac, Michigan) 
  • Best if you believe you need urgent support with an immediate crisis that impacts your ability to be safe, because you can avoid having to go to an emergency room 
  • Provides urgent, 24/7 mental health crisis screening, assessment, and linkage to care
  • You’ll interact with peers who have lived experience as a part of your care  
  • If you have to hang out and wait a long time, there may be (pending availability) the option to sleep in a private room
  • You’ll keep all your belongings in your possession (technology/phones, shoes/laces, backpacks, etc.) while there, as long as you don’t have weapons, alcohol/tobacco/drugs, or other contraband on your person 

You’ll receive a psychiatric evaluation, after which the provider will determine your best level of care 

You’ll most likely… 

  • Be sent home with resources to follow up on, including possible referrals to more comprehensive, short-term outpatient support 
  • Be offered (if eligible) a voluntary spot at their short-term hospital alternative, Crisis Residential Unit (only offered to Oakland County residents with medicaid or a selection of private insurances) 
  • Be determined to be in need of inpatient hospitalization, at which point you will not be permitted to leave or decline care, and will be transported to a hospital via ambulance

Common Ground now also offers a Behavioral Health Urgent Care service, which accepts many insurances, and also offers sliding scale out-of-pocket rates for folks in need of an urgent psychiatry appointment. You can make urgent, same-day psychiatry appointments here, if you’re out of your meds, or are in danger or running out. They are not intended to provide ongoing psychiatric care.

If you go to Common Ground and also have ID showing that you live in Oakland County, you may be eligible for a referral from the psychiatrist to Hope 365, which is a Peer Respite, meaning it’s a non-clinical supportive place to stay during a crisis, as an alternative to hospitalization. Although many find peer respites preferable to hospitalization, please note that requesting this option does not guarantee it will be approved. Any time you present to a psychiatrist for urgent psychiatric crisis care, there is a chance that you will be diverted to a hospital, regardless of your consent. Your best bet for approval for this level of care (peer respite, instead of the hospital) is if it’s deemed your crisis is causing severe distress and impacting your ability to function on a daily basis, but if the psychiatrist also believes you are not an active risk to yourself or others.

Detroit/Wayne Integrated Health Network (DWIHN) is the Public Mental Health Agency (Community Mental Health / CMH Agency) for Wayne County.

That means they administer a number of free crisis response services for Wayne country residents, including “mobile crisis” units that send clinical care to your address in crisis situations. Please note that DWIHN collaborates heavily with law enforcement, and all DWIHN crisis services will involve a minimal amount of interaction with police. These services also “triage” your crisis, which might lead to on-the-spot connection with a supportive listener, helpful (or unhelpful) referrals for follow-up care, and/or an involuntary hospital stay.

Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Best if you believe you need urgent support with an immediate crisis that impacts your ability to be safe, and are a current patient at Michigan Medicine, because you may be able to get care at Michigan Medicine’s inpatient unit, which is generally reported to be trans-affirming, supportive, and clinically effective, and can be difficult to access from other emergency rooms 

Notorious for long wait times and uncomfortable waiting conditions 

If you are deemed in need of hospitalization and Michigan Medicine cannot accommodate you, you will not be permitted to leave or decline services. You will be held at the facility until a bed is identified for you at a different hospital, at which point you will be transported via ambulance 

The local emergency room is an available option, if neither Common Ground nor PES are options and you need in-person, urgent mental health support. In my experience, whether or not you feel helped at the ER has a lot to do with the process that surrounds whether and/or how you choose to pursue this experience for yourself. If this feels like an option you’d like to explore, we can always discuss it together.

If you are medically stable (have not physically harmed yourself or been physically harmed by anyone else, and are not having any medical emergency, including a substance-related emergency) and would like to attempt to directly self-admit to an inpatient psychiatric facility, sometimes this is possible by calling the facility directly. When this works out smoothly, you can avoid the ER altogether, and end up in the hospital you choose for yourself (going to an ER often results in being involuntarily admitted to a hospital chosen by the ER social worker, based on soonest and most proximal bed availability).

A resource some have found helpful when considering possible inpatient mental healthcare was Psych Ward Reviews (https://psychwardreviews.wordpress.com/tag/michigan/). 

*A Note About Psychiatric Hospitalization …

It’s important to note that the primary purpose of most psychiatric hospitalization is ensuring your immediate physical safety, not provision of emotional support or any degree of comprehensive mental healthcare. Hospital staff are expected to treat you with dignity and respect, but may not have the capacity to support you emotionally, even if you are very triggered, upset, or in profound distress. It’s important to understand this because a decision to pursue psychiatric hospitalization (at most facilitates local to Michigan) is a decision about ensuring your immediate survival and preventing immediate bodily harm for yourself (or others, if your concern is about harming someone else). 

Only in rare circumstances does psychiatric hospitalization tend to have a significant clinical benefit, meaning that you feel upon discharge that you made progress towards your therapy goals, or have a sense of having received emotional support. 

Some people find some elements of psychiatric hospitalization therapeutic, but others have neutral, unsupportive, invalidating, or even outright distressing or traumatic experiences. Additionally, psychiatric hospitalization can have real-world drawbacks, including a possible impact on your academic status, medical debt, employment and eligibility for certain careers, housing-related issues, etc. This doesn’t mean nobody ever feels helped in the hospital — many people do and have; however, if you think you might pursue this option, planning ahead and getting support with decision-making can be the difference between a helpful experience and a harmful one.

If you are unsure about whether hospitalization makes sense in your situation, it can be helpful for us to think it over together. I have a lot of information about many local facilities, and can help you be strategic about if, when, and to which hospital you self-admit, if that is your decision. 

Before calling 911

If you or someone you know is in immediate, life-threatening danger and decide to call 911, please be aware that police are not equipped to offer mental health support and may even pose danger to BIPOC and/or dark-skinned folks, Neurodivergent folks, Mad/mentally ill/Disabled people, trans folks, youth, returning neighbors, and members of other marginalized groups.

Please ALSO reach out to community leaders, neighbors, friends, and family, and/or members of your Care Pod (if you have one) to be present if you are calling the police.

To learn more: 

Crisis Numbers to Call/Text

Here’s a list of crisis hotlines, warmlines, and text support support lines we endorse and tell our clients to use, if and when you can’t connect with one of us here during moments of crisis or overwhelm.

  • The Network La Red – for LGBTQ survivors of any type of abuse
  • Warmline Directory – Warmlines are like hotlines, but you don’t have to be in a serious emergency to call… If you just need an ear, but aren’t at active risk for harm to self or others, warmlines are an alterative number to call, where a trained peer volunteer will listen and talk with you. This directory lists known warmlines across the United States.
  • 7 Cups of Tea – A free online peer support platform
  • Project Lets Peer Mental Health Advocates – Matches you for 1:1 abolitionist peer support

Future Abolitionist Crisis Care Organizing in Michigan

In the long-term, Healing By Choice is working to develop a network of healing justice practitioners (including crisis support practitioners), operating from an abolitionist framework and informed by social justice values, that will travel to you: Motor City Mobile Wellness. It’s not ready to launch yet, but follow their progress on their Instgram.
Coalition for Re-Envisioning Our Safety (C.R.O.S.) in Washtenaw County, Michigan, is working in creating decarcerated, in-person crisis response services in Washtenaw County, Michigan; however, services are not yet available to the public. In my free time, I work with a group of abolitionist organizers to launch the Detroit Peer Respite; however, this is still a project under development. Unfortunately, clients of Inner Justice Works are not eligible to become guests or volunteers at Detroit Peer Respite, due to the boundaries of our clinical work. Detroit Peer Respite’s resource page, however, may still be a helpful guide for seeking the right support for your present situation.