Watch a brief video of Christina here.
How police should engage with people suffering from mental health conditions is a complex policy question that New York City has grappled with for decades. Due in part to the efforts of SLU master’s student Christina Sparrock, however, one piece of that puzzle was recently resolved.
This fall Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law directing all city and state agencies to stop referring to people experiencing a mental health crisis as EDPs, or “emotionally disturbed persons,” and instead use the term “person experiencing an emotional crisis,” shortened to PEEC or PEC. This follows a movement toward “people-first language” that aims to de-stigmatize conditions by describing what a person has, not who a person is. That’s why newer terms have become widespread, such as “person with alcoholism” instead of “alcoholic,” or using “unhoused,” which can be a temporary state, rather than the hopeless label of “homeless.”
Through harrowing personal experience, Christina knows the fear and danger of being called an EDP. She is a longtime mental health care advocate and is pursuing an M.A. in Urban Studies, with a concentration in Health Care Policy, to help boost her work to the next level.
“I am beyond excited that the state changed the law. It’s really important because it impacts millions of people with disabilities. It’s person-first. It’s a step in the right direction, to treat people with dignity and respect,” Christina said.
“Law enforcement, including police officers, will no longer use ‘EDP.’ I’m happy the clinicians at hospitals will no longer be able to use it. Hopefully, eventually, it will no longer be in schoolbooks either. The fire department can’t use it anymore. I’m excited.”
Pushing NYC For Better Care
Christina, 58, is a native of Fort Greene, Brooklyn who loves to dance – especially salsa – and frequents the Greene Garden, a community garden near the home she shares with her boyfriend.
A first impression upon meeting Christina is of a thoughtful, independent woman with a voice that’s sweet but resolute – hardly someone to dismiss as “an EDP.” And that’s the point: she repeatedly says she wants people experiencing an emotional crisis “to be treated like human beings.”
Her dream job is to be a part of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s mental health policy team. She has deep experience in many aspects of mental health, and government experience as well. She worked as an accountant after getting her bachelor’s degree in accounting at Hunter College, eventually serving as NYC’s Deputy Bureau Chief of Financial Reporting under Comptroller John Liu in 2013 (a position that ended along with Liu’s term in office).
Christina’s dedication to making mental health care more available led her to organize a grassroots volunteer organization, the NYC Mental Health Collective. The Collective comprises over 35 organizations working for comprehensive, community-based strategies – and convened a Mental Health Mayoral Town Hall on May 1, in the runup to the Democratic primary. The event was in Brooklyn, so SLU held a watch party on campus.
Democratic primary candidates Mamdani, Scott Stringer, Brad Lander, Michael Blake, James Walden, Whitney Tilson and Selma Bartholomew all participated. Actor Chad Coleman, a star of “The Wire” and “The Walking Dead,” served as moderator – after meeting Christina one day by chance, becoming friendly neighbors, and then accepting her invitation to get involved.
Above: Actor Chad Coleman, left, and then-candidate for mayor Zohran Mamdani speak at the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights in May.
Christina is happy that Mamdani supports a major goal of advocates: having “peers” included on the B-HEARD teams that currently respond to 911 calls involving a PEEC who is not physically endangering anyone. (A separate goal is to standardize using a number like 988 for mental health emergency calls rather than 911.)
B-HEARD is a program begun by former Mayor Bill de Blasio and modified by Mayor Eric Adams that uses a paramedic and a social worker to respond rather than only police officers. Christina considers this innovation a great step – but adding a peer to the mix will make the team even more effective.
Peers are people like her who have experienced their own mental health challenges and also received special training to help others. Christina is certified in Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) through the city police and corrections departments.
“We keep criminalizing people with mental health problems, and they’re just people who need medical attention,” she said. “Why can’t we have more preventative and intervention services for people in the community to support us? Because if we criminalize people with mental health, you never give them hope towards recovery.”
Breaking Point
Christina experienced her own emotional crisis in the mid-2000s, after working as an accountant at two News Corp divisions. She was at Fox News – a place notorious for sexual harassment and preferring a certain type of woman – and when she didn’t fit in there, was moved to the New York Post. It only got worse for her, Christina said: her seven white male bosses were unsupportive, and she worked around the clock while others worked from 9 to 5.
“I realized that I was experiencing racial and gender discrimination. It wasn’t fair,” she said. The stress and anguish led to her first breakdown, hospitalization, and labeling as an EDP.
Christina thinks that the ordeals of her youth, spent in poverty and a “traumatic, toxic environment” contributed to the mental health crisis as well. She was diagnosed as bipolar and began treatment with a compassionate Black therapist, which was fortunate because in general, the demand for Black therapists is greater than the supply.
She would go on to file suit against News Corp – which was unsuccessful, though it became a piece of evidence behind passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. President Obama signed the legislation in 2009, and Christina was left out of any mentions or ceremonies – a repeating dynamic of being overlooked that she attributes to having a disability.
Returning to higher education at SLU, on the other hand, has given Christina plenty of encouragement. “SLU is the bomb. It’s a small, intimate environment with other older adults, which I really like. I feel supported by my teachers,” she said.
“It’s helped me get over my anxiety with public speaking a little bit. I’m able to do more. It taught me how to do research. Research is very important for being a credible messenger.
I’m seeing how to apply what I’m learning here. I feel more confident,” she said.
Much More To Do
Christina is as busy as ever, working with her fellow advocates on a host of issues. She is a member of the task force on Daniel’s Law — passed by the State Senate, but not yet made law — which would require the statewide use of trauma-informed, peer-led crisis response teams to serve as first responders to emergency calls when someone is experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis.
She also serves as the Mental Health Chair of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s Maternal Health Task Force, and is a member of the state Department of Health’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee.
Christina has the street cred that comes from founding an innovative program in her own neighborhood. During the Covid epidemic, she noticed an uptick in the number of people in Fort Greene Park who were experiencing mental health challenges and not receiving any help. The acute stresses of that time included losing loved ones, losing jobs, fearing illness, questions about vaccines, general uncertainty, and being stuck inside with others for too long.
The situation drove Christina to create and launch a program to train NYC Parks officers, staff, and peers, known as the Social Well-Being Team, to provide care. The Person-Centered Intervention Training Mental Health Response Pilot was launched in 2021.
It continues today under the name Community Wellness Team, and Christina is no longer involved despite it being her brainchild – another instance of feeling passed over or pushed aside by others who take advantage of her mental health status. For example, the original press release about the program only mentioned her at the very bottom as the creator of a unique community-based public health response model.
“What I liked about hiring the Social Wellbeing Peers is that they had lived experience,” Christina said. “Like I had this one woman who was great. Her style was smoking with the people who needed help, outside of the park. When you start smoking with people or find something in common, they start talking to you. She was formerly incarcerated. She was formerly unhoused. So she knew how to relate to people. She taught them how to get Metro cards. I didn’t know how to do that. She taught them how to get mobile phones. I didn’t know how to do that. She taught them where to go to shelters. I didn’t know that.”
“This is why you need people with lived experience in the community, to be able to provide the supports, because we understand what people are going through and the services that they need.”