UK Crisis Care Model Prioritizes Trauma, Empathy, and Collaboration

Increasing attention has been given to prioritizing alternative ways to support people experiencing mental health crises.

A new article, published in BJPsych Bulletin, describes a trauma-informed, cross-cultural framework for responding to mental health crises that is gaining traction across the United Kingdom. Known as Comprehend, Cope, and Connect (CCC), the model emphasizes collaboration, compassion, and understanding over coercion, and early results suggest it is effective across a wide range of clinical and community settings.

The authors comprised a group of individuals from universities and NHS Trusts across the UK. They write:

“CCC is likely to be the next step in overcoming the public health problem of mental health crises, as indicated by a continuously growing evidence base and the widespread uptake of CCC. Helping people in crisis to understand the relevance of their past trauma, how it interacts with current hardship, and how their attempts at coping may be what is keeping the crisis state alive, will enhance the good work already being undertaken to support individuals accessing acute mental health services, and other services, who are in distress.”

This approach arrives amid growing recognition that standard psychiatric crisis care often relies on coercion, rapid containment, and narrowly biomedical models that fail to address the roots of distress. By focusing on the links between trauma, current stressors, and coping patterns, CCC reflects a shift toward crisis responses that prioritize human rights, reduce staff burnout, and adapt to diverse cultural contexts. The model also aligns with a broader movement to replace punitive or dehumanizing emergency interventions with care that is centered on the lived experience of those in crisis.