The Association of Co-Response Clinicians (ACRC)
Built by Clinicians. Guided by Ethics. Focused on Trust.
About Us
Welcome to the Association of Co-Response Clinicians (ACRC)—Securing the Integrity of Crisis Intervention and the Co-Response Model of Service.
The ACRC was established to navigate the evolving challenges surrounding client privacy, clinical standards, and the erosion of transparency in crisis response. Our emergence is a direct result of the clear legislative void facing the licensed mental health experts who navigate this specialized territory.
Our foundation rests on the advocacy of clinicians who recognized that current policies risked blurring the necessary boundaries between clinical behavioral healthcare and law enforcement investigations.
These systemic vulnerabilities revealed a critical lack of legal safeguards for vulnerable individuals receiving mental health support via co-response initiatives. These vulnerabilities leave clinicians exposed to independent licensure grievances and is a potential violation of the client's trust. Any action that breaks down the public's trust in licensed mental health professionals is not a risk any mental health professional should be agreeable to conducting.
Operating across Colorado and nationwide, co-response clinicians act as vital anchors during behavioral health emergencies. Working in tandem with first responders, they facilitate immediate care, divert individuals from the justice system, and bolster community resilience.
The success of these programs depends entirely on a single pillar:trust.
While existing privacy laws offer broad coverage, there is a distinct lack of statutory language tailored to the complexities of clinicians embedded within emergency response units.
ACRC is committed to positioning Colorado as a national leader in formalizing protections that ensure:
• Unwavering client confidentiality
• Clinical autonomy
• Ethical operational standards
• Sustained public confidence
• High-impact crisis resolution
Overlapping First Responder Protections
Some Colorado statutes protect multiple first responder roles at the same time. These include protections for peace officers, firefighters, EMS providers, rescue specialists, and volunteers when they are performing official duties.
Examples include:
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Assault protections
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Obstruction protections
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Protections involving exposure to bodily fluids
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Traffic safety protections such as Colorado’s “Slow Down, Move Over” law
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Benefit-related protections such as workers’ compensation, death benefits, PTSD-related coverage, and other first responder supports
The Gap: Co-Response Clinicians
Co-response clinicians work side-by-side with law enforcement, fire, EMS, and rescue teams. They respond to behavioral health crises, suicide calls, substance use-related incidents, domestic violence situations, welfare checks, psychosis, trauma, homelessness, and other high-risk community calls.
Yet, under Colorado law, co-response clinicians are not specifically recognized as protected first responders.
This means co-response clinicians may be asked to:
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Enter volatile and unpredictable scenes
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Respond alongside armed first responders
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De-escalate individuals in crisis
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Enter homes, camps, hospitals, jails, schools, and public spaces
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Provide clinical intervention in the middle of public safety incidents
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Face many of the same environmental risks as law enforcement, fire, EMS, and rescue personnel
But they do so without:
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Specific statutory protection
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First responder recognition
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Comparable compensation
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Clear legal classification
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Enhanced protections when assaulted, threatened, or obstructed while performing co-response duties
Can you see the gap?------> Can you see the problem?-----> Enter the invisible responder campaign
Colorado has established statutory protections for many traditional first responders, including law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMS providers, rescue specialists, and certain volunteers. These protections recognize that first responders enter unpredictable, high-risk environments while serving the public.
However, co-response clinicians are being asked to enter those same environments alongside law enforcement, fire, EMS, and rescue teams without comparable statutory protections, first responder recognition, or compensation structures.
Existing Colorado Protections for First Responders
Colorado law provides enhanced protections for several first responder roles, including:
Law Enforcement
Colorado statutes provide enhanced protections and penalties when a peace officer is assaulted, obstructed, resisted, disarmed, or targeted while performing official duties. Relevant statutes include:
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C.R.S. § 18-3-202 — First-degree assault
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C.R.S. § 18-3-203 — Second-degree assault
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C.R.S. § 18-3-204 — Third-degree assault
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C.R.S. § 18-8-103 — Resisting arrest
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C.R.S. § 18-8-104 — Obstructing a peace officer
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C.R.S. § 18-8-111.5 — False reporting of identifying information
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C.R.S. § 18-1.3-406 — Crime of violence sentencing enhancements
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Additional protections related to disarming an officer, menacing, harassment, and other offenses
Firefighters
Colorado law specifically recognizes firefighters in several criminal statutes when they are performing lawful duties, including:
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C.R.S. § 18-3-203 — Second-degree assault involving bodily injury or bodily fluids
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C.R.S. § 18-3-204 — Third-degree assault involving hazardous bodily fluids
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C.R.S. § 18-8-104 — Obstructing a firefighter
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C.R.S. § 18-3-201 — Definitions related to assault protections
Protect the Team = Protect the Mission = Protect Our Communities.
Addressing the gap
EMS and Rescue Personnel
EMS providers, rescue specialists, and certain volunteers are also protected under overlapping first responder statutes, including:
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C.R.S. § 18-3-203 — Second-degree assault
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C.R.S. § 18-3-204 — Third-degree assault
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C.R.S. § 18-8-104 — Obstructing EMS providers, rescue specialists, or volunteers
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C.R.S. § 18-3-201 — Definitions related to protected emergency personnel
ACRC proposal to Colorado legislators to define the co-response clinician in statue.
The Invisible responder
Co-Response Clinicians are expected to function effectively within public safety environments while maintaining the responsibilities and ethical standards of behavioral health professionals.
Yet when decisions are made about co-response—its policies, legislation, training, funding, professional standards, and future—the clinical voice is not always equally represented.
The clinician may be standing in the room when the crisis happens.
But who is standing in the room when the policies governing that clinician are written?
That is the problem of The Invisible Responder.
Co-Response is a partnership- it's time that clinicians began being treated like partners.
One of the most persistent misconceptions surrounding efforts to establish standards, ethical safeguards, and statutory protections for co-response clinicians is the assertion that these efforts are somehow “anti-law enforcement.” This characterization fundamentally misrepresents the mission of the Association of Co-Response Clinicians (ACRC) and distracts from the legitimate policy questions that deserve thoughtful discussion.
The ACRC exists to strengthen co-response—not weaken it.
Our mission is to advance evidence-based, ethically sound, and sustainable co-response models that improve outcomes for individuals experiencing behavioral health crises while supporting the professionals who serve them. Effective co-response depends upon strong interdisciplinary partnerships built on mutual respect, clearly defined roles, and public confidence. Those goals benefit clinicians, first responders, community partners, and, most importantly, the people seeking help.
ACRC is unequivocally pro–law enforcement. Law enforcement officers are a vital part of the co-response dynamic and play an essential role in maintaining public safety and supporting crisis response efforts. At the same time, there is an undeniable imbalance of power when policies and procedures are developed in ways that can leave clinicians exposed to independent grievance processes and personal liability with clients. Co-responders do not have the same legal protections, institutional backing, or statutory clarity that law enforcement officers are afforded. Recognizing and addressing this imbalance is not a critique of law enforcement—it is a necessary step toward building a fair, sustainable, and effective co-response system.
Protecting clinicians does not weaken law enforcement.
Protecting clinicians strengthens co-response.
And stronger co-response strengthens communities.
Across Colorado and the United States, co-response programs operate under many different models. Behavioral health clinicians partner with sheriff’s offices, municipal police departments, fire departments, emergency medical services, paramedics, community-based crisis teams, hospitals, mobile crisis units, and multidisciplinary response teams. The common denominator is not the agency involved—it is the integration of behavioral health expertise into crisis response.
If advocating for ethical clinical independence were inherently “anti-law enforcement,” one would also have to conclude that the same principles are anti-fire, anti-paramedic, anti-EMS, or anti-public health whenever clinicians are embedded alongside those professionals. That conclusion is plainly illogical.
The issue has never been which agency clinicians work beside.
The issue is preserving the independence of clinical decision-making regardless of the partner agency.
The ACRC recognizes that every discipline contributes unique expertise during crisis response. Collaboration is most effective when each profession is empowered to fulfill its own responsibilities without pressure to assume the legal or ethical obligations of another discipline.
The ACRC is unequivocally Pro-Law enforcement- to suggest the contrary is to diminish the integrity of this association and the efforts to gain equitable participation for Co-Response Clinicians.
Pro Co-Response Clinician = Pro Law Enforcement
These roles are different by design.
Recognizing and protecting those distinctions strengthens collaboration rather than undermining it.
When concerns about clinician independence are dismissed simply because they involve law enforcement partnerships, the conversation shifts away from the actual issues. The question is no longer whether a policy is ethical, legally sound, or supported by evidence. Instead, the discussion becomes centered on perceived loyalties or institutional identities.
This creates a false choice.
Calls for ethical standards, legislative clarification, and professional protections should never be interpreted as opposition to law enforcement. Rather, they reflect an understanding that every profession participating in crisis response has distinct legal responsibilities, ethical obligations, and scopes of practice.
Law enforcement officers have sworn duties to protect public safety and enforce the law.
Clinicians have independent legal and ethical duties to provide healthcare, protect confidentiality within the limits of the law, exercise independent clinical judgment, and maintain therapeutic relationships.
Supporting ethical protections for clinicians is not the same as opposing law enforcement. Advocating for clearly defined professional boundaries does not diminish the work of deputies, police officers, firefighters, paramedics, or emergency medical personnel. In fact, clearly defined roles reduce confusion, improve accountability, and strengthen interdisciplinary teamwork.
Importantly, co-response is not synonymous with law enforcement.
This is precisely why statutory guidance and professional safeguards are needed.
Without consistent statewide standards, clinicians may encounter widely varying expectations regarding documentation, confidentiality, informed consent, testimony, evidence collection, and investigative participation. These inconsistencies create uncertainty for clinicians, partner agencies, employers, and the public.
Legislative clarity would not restrict collaboration. It would strengthen it by ensuring that all participants understand the appropriate scope and responsibilities of each professional role.
Ultimately, this work is not about choosing between behavioral health and public safety.
It is about recognizing that effective public safety increasingly depends upon effective behavioral healthcare.
The strongest co-response systems are those in which every profession is respected for its unique expertise, every participant understands their responsibilities, and every individual in crisis can trust that the professionals responding are acting within clearly defined, ethically grounded roles.
Strengthening the Co-Response Clinician
As co-response continues to expand across the United States, there remains no nationally recognized competency framework or professional standard specific to the role of the co-response clinician. The behavioral health professionals serving communities in these roles are highly skilled, adaptable, and accomplished—typically holding master's degrees and post-graduate licensure in social work, counseling, psychology, marriage and family therapy, or addiction counseling. Yet despite their clinical expertise, most receive little to no formal education designed specifically for the unique demands of field-based crisis response. Consequently, agencies are left to develop their own training models, policies, and expectations, resulting in wide variation in clinician preparation, role definition, and practice. While this flexibility has fostered innovation, it has also limited the professional recognition of co-response clinicians, leaving gaps in standardized competencies, legislative representation, liability protections, and, at times, equal standing within multidisciplinary public safety partnerships.
To advance the profession and establish a foundation for consistent, high-quality practice, the Association of Co-Response Clinicians created the FieldWise™ Institute—a competency-based educational institute dedicated to enhancing the field readiness of co-response clinicians through specialized training, professional development, and evidence-informed standards that strengthen both the profession and the communities it serves.
Introducing FieldWise™: The Institute for Co-Response Excellence
