Across the country longstanding challenges in meeting demands for mental health services now are being exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile rising suicide rates and the opioid crisis are also cause for great concern. The 2021 Compendium of Ready to Respond: Mental Health Beyond Crisis and COVID-19, offers mental health system leaders a coordinated set of guiding documents from the nation’s leading experts in areas ranging from children in crisis to financing and data collection, partnership with law enforcement in crisis response, suicide prevention and disaster behavioral health response. Throughout the series the authors contemplate issues of diversity and equity to help continue to drive services in the direction of equal access to all.

Commissioned by SAMHSA and executed by NASMHPD, the Ready to Respond compendium provides 10 authoritative papers on critical topics of our time related to crisis services and post-COVID-19 vision for mental health services.