About Us

Our Members

Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Behavioral Health Response (St. Louis)
Terros Health (Tucson)
City of Chicago CARE
City of Durham HEART
White Bird Clinic – CAHOOTS
Columbia River Mental Health Services
Sea Mar
Canopy Roots
Vera Institute of Justice
City of Seattle CARE
Cascadia Health
Dignity Best Practices
Futures Institute
Multnomah County
City of Madison CARES
Central City Concern
City of Denver STAR
Alameda County
The Policing Project
Harriet’s Wildest Dreams
Chicago Street Medicine

Local Progress
SOAR Case Management Services
Frontline Crisis Academy
Urban Alchemy
Dayton Mediation Center
Netcare Access
Dade County Street Response
Alliance for Safety and Justice
1 Million Madly Motivated Moms (1M4)
Council on State Governments
Aspen Hope Center
Vibrant
Resource For Human Development (Louisiana)
Mobile Crisis Services of Lane County
City of Rochester PIC
Los Angeles County
Contra Costa County
Crisis Response Programs and Training, Inc.
TBD Solutions
Regional Crisis Response Washington
Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network
Benton County Crisis Team
Rocky Mountain Health Plans

City of Evanston CARE
Access: Supports for Living
City of Amherst CRESS
Loyola Street Medicine
Behavioral Health System Baltimore, Inc.
Plains Area Mental Health Center
City of Aurora
City of Raleigh CARES
Tury Research
People USA
Reimagining Public Safety Together
Clackamas County
Sycamores
Advocates
Bazelon Center
City of Los Angeles
New York HHS – B-HEARD
County of Milwaukee
Integral Care
City of New Haven
Corvallis Drop-In Center
Transcending Hope
Western Lane Crisis Response

Who We Are

The Alternative Mobile Services Association is an emerging group of professionals and peers with the purpose of researching, assessing, and identifying best practice models of mobile response services that support or are alternatives to traditional 911 emergency response, police services, and unnecessary hospitalization. Additionally, the association seeks to promote networking and cooperation among providers, jurisdictions and allied stakeholders interested in alternatives to conventional policing.
What We Do

The Alternative Mobile Services Association supports street-level alternatives to police.
Understanding Alternative Mobile Services

Alternative mobile services encompass a variety of responses to the immediate needs and crisis situations in the community. Mobile services can include street outreach vans that provide supplies and support to the homeless, mental health agencies that provide in-person mobile response to clients in suicidal crisis (either immediately or within 24 hours), police programs that pair a clinician with a police officer to respond to mental health related calls, and hospital-based outreach programs which provide services in their community. A mobile service is simply any service that works with high-needs populations and meets them where they’re at, in their own space, to get them the help they need in a moment of need or distress.

AMSA Advisory Council 2024-2026

Executive Director of the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative, Atlanta

Moki has served as the Executive Director of PAD since its launch in 2017. Moki has spent the last 20 years engaged in community organizing, program development and advocacy related to criminal justice reform and community development. In 2008 she co-founded Building Locally to Organize for Community Safety (BLOCS), which won subpoena power for the Atlanta Citizen’s Review Board and contributed to the dismantling of the notorious REDDOG unit. Moki serves on the Advisory Board of the Alternative Mobile Services Association.

Center for Innovations in Community Safety, Georgetown Law School

Tahir Duckett is the Executive Director of the Center for Innovations in Community Safety. He was previously an attorney at Relman Colfax, a nationally renowned civil rights law firm specializing in discriminatory policing, housing, lending, employment, education, and public accommodation. He was also a founding executive committee member of Law For Black Lives-DC (L4BLDC), an organization providing legal and policy support to the Movement for Black Lives in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. As part of L4BLDC, Tahir has facilitated and participated in dozens of formal trainings, teach-ins, and conversations about community safety.

Wayne State University

Trained as a mental health services researcher, Amy has focused on people with serious mental illnesses that come in contact with the criminal legal system and interventions to prevent and reduce criminal legal involvement. She has conducted extensive research on police encounters with persons with mental illnesses and the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model. She has also examined mental health courts and prison reentry programs. Her current work is looking at models to reduce or eliminate the role of law enforcement in mental health crisis response. Earlier in her research career, she was the project director of a NIMH Center focused on mental illness stigma, and stigma reduction remains an important theme in her work. Other professional activities include serving on the CIT International Board of Directors from 2016-2021, (as President of the Board 2020-2021) and on the compliance team for the Department of Justice Settlement Agreement with the City of Portland, Oregon. Her direct practice experience includes working as a probation officer on a team serving clients with serious mental illnesses and as a Forensic Social Worker/Mitigation Specialist working on death penalty cases. She has a BA in Criminal Justice from Aurora University and an AM and PhD from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.

Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc.

Quinita Garrett LCPC, NCC is the Director of Call Center, Mobile Crisis and System Coordination at Baltimore Crisis Response, Inc (BCRI). Quinita has worked for BCRI over nine years in various roles; including as a mental health clinician on their Mobile Response Team.

Quinita is an outspoken community leader in Maryland for funding needed services, including the Maryland 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline network. She also works part time providing individual, family, and group therapy as a licensed clinical professional counselor.

Chicago Public Health Department

Tiffany Patton-Burnside, LCSW is Senior Director of Crisis Services for the Chicago Public Health Department and has worked in the field for over 20 years, providing services and attending to those with social/emotional needs. She is the director of the CARE Chicago mobile team. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from UIC, a Master’s degree in Social Work from Dominican University, and in 2009 became an LCSW. She has been in leadership for the last half of her career. Her ultimate goal is and has always been to be a change agent for those who live with social and emotional challenges.

Behavioral Health Response

Dr. Spratt is Vice President of Justice and Crisis Response at Behavioral Health Response in St. Louis. As a leader and champion for social services for nearly 15 years, she has devoted her career to serving vulnerable populations and communities. Her broad experience ranges from working with youth and families as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Social Worker nationally.

In February 2021, spearheaded the development of St. Louis’ first of its kind, Crisis Response Street & Triage Unit, the 911 Call Diversion, where calls are transferred from the St. Louis City’s 911 Dispatch Communication Center to Behavioral Health Response, an external entity and St. Louis CARES initiative. Her initiatives have significantly reduced incarceration and hospitalization rates due to improved awareness, interactions and proper diagnoses when serving individuals and communities suffering from mental crisis.

Congregation Shir Tikvah

Rabbi Ariel Stone serves the independent Congregation Shir Tikvah of Portland Oregon. She was ordained by Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and earned a Doctoral degree from Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. She is an active member of the Portland Interfaith Clergy Resistance and the Mental Health Alliance.

From Kiev, Ukraine, to Israel, and in various U.S. communities, Rabbi Ariel Stone has shared Torah study, Talmud, and Jewish mysticism with enthusiastic students from all walks of life for 20 years.

Director of Community Safety for the City of Durham

Ryan Smith is the Director of the City of Durham, NC’s Community Safety Department which operates Durham’s newest first responder branch called HEART (www.durhamnc.gov/heart). Ryan joined the City in 2017 as the Innovation Team Director where much of his work focused on criminal justice reform, including developing a mass relief driver’s license restoration program. Prior to working in local government, Ryan worked for Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, for Congressman David Price, and for a diverse array of non-profits with missions ranging from teaching documentary photography to recently resettled refugee youth to providing free preschool to children living in poverty.

Exodus Recovery, Los Angeles

Ebony Morgan is a Psychiatric Registered Nurse and Program Director of Mobile Crisis Intervention for Exodus Recovery Inc., providing services for the City of Los Angeles. She is the formers CAHOOTS Program Director for White Bird Clinic of Eugene, Oregon.

Mental Health Association of Portland

Jeff is a small business accountant, licensed in Oregon and Washington State. He has served as Treasurer of the Mental Health Association of Portland since 2003.

AMSA's History

The Mental Health Association of Portland launched the AMSA in 2020 and offered national virtual conferences on alternatives to police in 2022, 2023 and 2025. The organization is a 501 C 3 peer-led nonprofit organization with an education and advocacy agenda since 2003.

About Us

Who We Are

What We Do

Understanding Alternative Mobile Services

AMSA Advisory Council 2024-2026

Moki Macias

Tahir Duckett, JD

Amy C Watson, PhD

Quinita Garrett LCPC, NCC

Tiffany Patton-Burnside, LCSW

Felicia Spratt, LPC, Ed.d

Rabbi Ariel Stone

Ryan Smith

Ebony Morgan, RN

Jeff Donohoe, CPA

AMSA's History