“How do we respond to folks with care and not cages?” asks Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu, one of the featured speakers for the free public event “Non-carceral Approaches to Mental Distress in the Post-secondary Context,” on Zoom on Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 10 a.m.

“The understanding that police do not make us safe is widening, and students are asking: what does make us safe?” says Kaufman-Mthimkhulu founding director of Project LETS and author of We Don’t Need Cops to Become Social Workers. “How should we deal with the things students usually call the cops or emergency services about?”

Therapist and community organizer Carly Boyce will discuss tools for suicide intervention in peer-based and professionalized environments that don’t rely on carceral systems.

The event is presented by Women’s and Gender Studies and Disability Studies in the School of Social Work, and the Student Mental Health Strategy Fund. Find more information, including a link to register to attend and biographical details of the speakers, on the event website.