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After being passed over by the city of Eugene to replace CAHOOTS, Willamette Valley Crisis Care pivots, looking to help educate the public and find ways it can help the overburdened emergency workers.
Willamette Valley Crisis Care, a group of community responders created by four former CAHOOTS members, hosted a training session Friday, Aug. 28, for employees, business owners and others who regularly interact with people in crisis in downtown Eugene.
The free, two-hour event at the Art House was organized in partnership with the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce’s Downtown Coalition. It was part its Community Safety and Care Town Hall and Skill-Up Series.
Additional trainings are planned in Lane and Benton counties, but details of future sessions were not yet available.
The Friday training came months after the city of Eugene chose an organization called Ideal Option over Willamette Valley Crisis Care to fill some of the gaps left by the exit of mobile crisis intervention service CAHOOTS, which stopped operating in Eugene in April 2025.
Without a contract with the city, Willamette Valley Crisis Care began rethinking its role. Instead of trying to replicate CAHOOTS, the group is focusing on public education and rebuilding what its leaders call a “care-based” approach to community safety through training.
The educational series is funded through a grant from the Chambers Family Foundation, with additional support from an employee-donation program at PenFed Credit Union and a separate donation through the Oregon Community Foundation, according to Michelle Perin, a former CAHOOTS employee who founded Willamette Valley Crisis Care along with Laurel Lisovskis. Willamette Valley Crisis Care declined to share the amount of the grant funding.
According to Perin and Lisovskis, also a former CAHOOTS worker, the curriculum is a condensed version of training they used to give to community groups and volunteers during their time with CAHOOTS.
It covered four main areas: staying grounded as “the instrument of intervention,” building quick rapport and trust with someone in crisis, setting and holding personal boundaries and recognizing medical emergencies — including hyperthermia and overdoses.
Each session comes with resource materials tailored for its audience.
“The resources really focus on who do you have in your corner, how do you reach out, who is going to be there if you need additional support?” Perin said.
For downtown workers, this meant highlighting existing organizations like the “red hat” ambassadors program and the peer navigation team.
Mikki Washburn, Renew Collaborative director at Everyone Village, attended the training and appreciated how Lisovskis and a co-presenter role-played different scenarios.
“I do feel better prepared for when meeting a human in crisis on the street,” Washburn said.
