How Canopy Roots Is Attempting to Rewrite Crisis Response

Cherie Hanson, program manager for the Behavioral Crisis Response team. Photo Sarah Whiting

 For crisis response, call 988. Or, in Minneapolis, if you call 911 and it is deemed a mental health crisis, BCR will be dispatched. 

Someone called 911 about a young autistic man who appeared distressed. Normally, police might be dispatched with a goal of control and compliance. But in Minneapolis, something different is taking root.

An emergency responder from the Behavioral Crisis Response team (BCR) was dispatched and told the young man, “I’m here for you — would you like some water?” recalls Cherie Hanson, program manager for the BCR. “It didn’t take long for this young man to start talking and relax.”

After the situation was resolved without escalation or harm, Hanson says police officers thanked responders because it was not something they had felt particularly capable of handling.

This is a glimpse of emergency response led by empathy, not enforcement.

Built for Change

The BCR team emerged from Minneapolis’s reckoning with the police murder of George Floyd. When hope for systemic change felt possible, Canopy Roots, a mental health practice serving Black and marginalized communities, responded to the city’s request for alternatives to traditional emergency response. The program launched at the end of 2021 on the premise that people in mental health crisis deserve compassionate care, not law enforcement.

“There’s a misconception that someone in crisis is inherently dangerous. We reject that assumption,” Hanson says.

Since launching in late 2021, BCR has responded to nearly 35,000 calls across Minneapolis. The results challenge assumptions about crisis response:

• 80 percent of BCR calls are resolved without involving other emergency services.
• There have been no serious injuries to recipients or responders.
• The service is available 24/7 with no cost to callers, no insurance billing, and no personal information collected.

These statistics are even more significant when compared to conventional emergency response, where at least one in four fatal police interactions involve someone with mental health needs.

Safety Through Understanding

Critics often focus on responder safety in unarmed response programs. Hanson addresses this directly: “I wish people understood that our main concern is safety. We don’t go out there underestimating potential danger. We are well-educated on what could happen.”

BCR’s safety protocols are fundamentally different:

• Responders maintain clear protocols for requesting additional support.
• They never force intervention on someone who doesn’t want help or isn’t responsive.
• They lead with calm energy that recipients often mirror.
• They work with other agencies when needed.
• “We train on culturally specific communication styles that are often misinterpreted as aggression,” Hanson explains. “We learn the difference between anger at the system versus anger at the responder, practice active listening, and understand power dynamics to prevent escalation.”

Responders receive monthly refresher sessions and ongoing support, including peer counseling, free therapy, wellness time, flexible scheduling, and dedicated decompression space. “We know our team can’t provide quality care without also taking care of each other and ourselves,” Hanson notes.

The biggest obstacle to the model is funding. BCR operates as a free service, but sustainable delivery requires dedicated budget and policy that recognize mental health crisis response as part of essential public safety infrastructure.

Every family member, neighbor, or person who calls for crisis response “deserves access to compassionate care without fear of violence from seeking that care,” says Hanson.

Scaling Compassion and Dignity

Despite limited funding, Canopy Roots is expanding beyond Minneapolis. They’ve opened a team in Brooklyn Center and in Los Angeles. The organization works with peer programs nationally to establish best practices and is building community advisory boards for oversight and accountability.

Hanson’s vision feels both ambitious and necessary: “We want to see mental-health-first response become the standard in all communities on the same level as fire, police, and EMS.”

Watch this video about how the Behavioral Crisis Response team supported one family; a former Minnesota Women’s Press staff member was involved in the making of this.

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