Jessica Ocean, MS
Previously a project manager at tech companies with a combined market cap of $4.8 billion, Jess established Psych Crisis in 2021 with a grant from Georgetown’s Emergent Ventures after the death of her brother to suicide in the mental health crisis system.
She has a Masters in Economics from the University of Sydney and an undergraduate degree from the same institution majoring in political science. Her experimental economics mentor later became the lead advisor on behavioral economics to the Australian Prime Minister.
She has served on committees to reduce absconding of mental health patients from EDs in NSW, Australia and to develop state legislative proposals for the peer advocacy community in California. She has trained in Intentional Peer Support and has been a crisis counselor with San Francisco Suicide Prevention.
In 2021 she led a research project called the Lived Expertise Project applying award-winning expertise-extraction techniques developed in the military to learn from people who successfully recovered from suicidal and psychotic crises. She also published the world’s first free online guide to helping a family member through a manic episode.
Ben Adam Climer, EMT & MTS
Ben Adam has trained more of California’s mental health crisis teams than any other trainer in the state.
He began his career with several years in frontline homelessness services, shelters and outreach, and then worked as a crisis worker and EMT at CAHOOTS in Oregon starting in 2014. He later became an administrator and program and training consultant, spending a total of 5 years at the organization.
At CAHOOTS he learned and perfected the unique, highly effective de-escalation capabilities that made the organization the most effective and longest-running street crisis team in the US, and helped form a speciality response team that was awarded for its public service by the City of Eugene and Willamette Family Services.
Since leaving CAHOOTS he has helped establish 10 mobile crisis teams following the CAHOOTS model in 14 cities and 2 universities across California and Florida.
He also parlayed his skill in de-escalation into the development of highly effective trauma-informed crisis de-escalation, suicide intervention and harm reduction training, which he has delivered to 10 organizations in California. His training was described ‘as the best they’d ever seen’ by the director of Stockton’s leading food security organization (St Mary’s Dining Room), and as ‘necessary for every housing organization in LA’ by Housing Works California.
Manning Walker, EMT
Manning has over a decade of experience working with the CAHOOTS mobile crisis response service model, and an additional 8 years of experience in public safety as a volunteer firefighter, EMT, and unarmed guard.
With a proven track record as a supervisor, project manager, and program director, Manning participated in training the first major CAHOOTS team expansion into Springfield OR, managed the launch and growth of the SAFE teams in Sonoma Co. CA, and managed the expansion of services for The Healing and Justice Center’s mobile crisis response team in Miami FL.
Manning has logged over 6,000 hours training personnel in the field, and over 2,500 hours of classroom and workshop instruction in emergency medical care, mental health crisis de-escalation, advocacy, and self-defense.
Due to his broad background in public safety and public services, Manning tailors program design and training procedures to the needs of specific operational environments. In Sonoma Co. CA this approach resulted in prioritizing bilingual staffing and the development of homeless outreach protocols. In Liberty City, Miami, this approach combined pairing the crisis team with community violence interrupters for increased access to high-risk neighborhoods and the cultivation of service agreements with 988 and area social service providers to conduct welfare checks in communities that have historically not welcomed public safety personnel.