The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, in collaboration with the Center for Policing Equity (CPE), is hosting a virtual learning community focused on enhancing collaborative behavioral health crisis response strategies at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, also known as HBCUs. While the rates of mental health issues are similar across all racial groups, students of color are less likely to seek treatment.

Recognizing the unique challenges and opportunities at HBCUs, this learning community is an opportunity to galvanize students, administration, faculty, public safety systems, and surrounding communities to significantly enhance HBCU’s crisis response systems to better address the needs of people in behavioral health crisis and help foster a culture of well-being and safety for all.

The learning community will be led by the CSG Justice Center, a national nonprofit that provides data-driven solutions for complex justice challenges, and CPE, a leader in public safety redesign. It will include opportunities for mutual learning through peer-to-peer support and guidance from leading experts in the field. Teams will also have a chance to troubleshoot any distinct challenges they are facing with CSG Justice Center and CPE policy staff. 

The topics for the sessions will be tailored to the specific needs of the learning community participants, but they could include considerations and best practices on resource mapping and needs assessments, community engagement, building a crisis infrastructure through collaborative local partnerships, communicating impact, and more.

Session dates will occur on:
January 22, 2026
February 26, 2026
March 26, 2026
April 23, 2026
May 14, 2026

All sessions will take place 2:00-3:30 p.m. ET via Zoom.

Teams who are interested in participating should complete and submit this application by 11:59 p.m. ET on November 10, 2025. A CSG Justice Center or CPE staff member will follow up with you by November 18, 2025.

If you have any questions, contact Cierren Edmondson at cedmondson@policingequity.org.

This application should take approximately 10 minutes to complete.  

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