A.W.A.R.E. New Jersey

The encounter

The same call. Two endings.

When someone in crisis is praying, hearing a voice, or describing an encounter with the sacred, the system that meets them first usually has no framework for what it's seeing. So it defaults to the only script it knows.

Without a framework

Spiritual content is read as a symptom.

The behavior gets labeled hyper-religiosity, fanaticism, or "out of touch with reality." The encounter escalates because no one knows it doesn't have to.

1 Religious language is logged as delusion

2 Involuntary hold; restraints; the ER

3 $10,000–$30,000 per stay — and lasting trauma

4 A natural, often positive experience is pathologized

With A.W.A.R.E.

The responder recognizes what they're seeing.

They de-escalate, listen without judgment, and ask three vetted questions. The spiritual dimension becomes a clinical data point — not a trigger for force.

1 Calm, lower the stimulus, create space

2 Ask the three questions — no diagnosing

3 Offer clergy or a peer-support specialist

4 Note Z65.8 in the record for a proper handoff

A spiritual emergency is a profound encounter with the sacred — a mystical state, an awakening, a crisis of meaning — intense enough to overwhelm a person, yet not, in itself, a mental illness.

These states are real. They are well-documented across every tradition — Christian ecstasy, Jewish mystical experience, meditation-induced states in Hindu and Buddhist practice. They are actively sought and deeply valued. And they are among the experiences most likely to be misread as psychiatric emergency by a first responder who has no framework for understanding them.

DSM-5-TR · ICD-10 code Z65.8 — Moral, Religious or Spiritual Problem

The tool

A reference that fits in a shift, in a pocket.

A.W.A.R.E. NJ is a live, installable mobile app — no app store required, works offline. Built from a pocket card refined over years of orientations with first responders across New Jersey and the country.

Recognize the signs

An at-a-glance reference for the behaviors a responder might see — ecstatic or withdrawn states, voices or visions, religious or mythological themes, an altered sense of reality — and the labels these are too often mistaken for.

Know what to do

A three-step field protocol: de-escalate, listen without judgment, ask. Lower the voice, slow the pace, reduce sirens and lights. Never dismiss the spiritual content.

Ask the right questions

Three vetted, non-diagnostic questions that open a door instead of forcing one.

"Do you sense something religious or spiritual is occurring?"

Document for a real handoff

One reference to the Z65.8 code. Noted in the record, it follows the person to the ER or intake — so receiving staff flag for a chaplain or peer specialist instead of starting from zero.

Ask the AI guide — hands-free

An embedded assistant, grounded in the AWARE protocol, that a responder can talk to on the way to a call. Calm, specific, mission-aligned — and it never replaces their training or their safety.

A.W.A.R.E.

New Jersey

Spiritual Emergency First Responder Reference

Am I Seeing This?

Signs to recognize

What Do I Do?

De-escalate · Listen · Ask

What Do I Ask?

The 3 key questions

Quick Reference

Z65.8 · terminology · contacts

AI Guide

Ask the AWARE NJ assistant

The intervention

Three questions. No diagnosis required.

We are not asking first responders to diagnose. We are asking them to observe behavior, ask three questions, and flag the record. Clinicians can barely make these distinctions — responders don't have to. They just have to open the door.

Question One

"Do you sense something religious or spiritual is occurring?"

Opens the door. Validates the person's experience without labeling or diagnosing it.

Question Two

"Would you like a clergy member to be called for support?"

Respects their tradition. Bridges to appropriate, trusted spiritual care in the moment.

Question Three

"Would a peer-support specialist familiar with your traditions help?"

Connects to culturally competent care — and a path that isn't the back of a car.

From the field

The officers who lived it had never seen anything like it.

Two veteran law enforcement officers — one a national crisis-response authority, one a former patrol officer — reviewed the app independently. Their words, unprompted.

I've never seen anything like that before. This would have been nice to have, to be honest with you, on duty.

"It's hard to find that fine line between what is absolute paranoia and somebody truly experiencing this. A lot of officers miss that — and if they miss the chance to use a resource, it could compromise the patient."

Ernie Stevens

Founder, San Antonio PD Mental Health Unit · Council of State Governments Justice Center

I wish I would have known to ask that during my career. I asked the typical de-escalation questions — but not the spiritual-specific.

"Looking back, there were so many times I just didn't know what to say. Had I had that app with those questions, it probably would've been a game changer."

Scott Medlin

Former police officer · law enforcement podcast host

Why the stakes are this high

In the case both officers point to as the clearest example of a missed spiritual emergency, a woman in crisis asked for her Bible. The red flags were there. They were missed — with a tragic, irreversible outcome. A framework in that moment is the difference between an encounter and a catastrophe.

Who it serves

Built for the people who arrive first.

Conceived for patrol officers — but the people who encounter spiritual crisis first are a wider circle, and many are already oriented toward compassionate response.

Law Enforcement & CIT

Officers and crisis-intervention teams who need a fast, in-field reference for a situation training never covered.

988 & Crisis Lines

Dispatchers, screeners, and mobile crisis teams — a smaller behavior change for staff already trained to listen.

ER & Stabilization

Intake and emergency staff who receive the handoff — the Z65.8 flag tells them where to start.

Chaplains & Clergy

Multi-faith chaplains and clergy — already on payroll, already trained to be present — ready to be called in.

The moment

A.W.A.R.E. NJ is not ahead of its time. It is exactly on time.

The policy environment, the funding environment, and the field itself have converged on the premise this work was built on.

Federal recognition

Mental health is being named, at the highest level, as having a spiritual dimension.

A new White House Faith Office invites faith-based and community organizations to compete for federal health funding — and a major federal faith-and-health initiative has put real dollars behind the premise that recovery has a spiritual component.

Source: federal policy announcements, 2025–2026

The 988 gap

Eight million people reached 988 in 2025. Not one call carried a spiritual-emergency protocol.

Congress appropriated $520M for 988 in FY2025, with a further $231M opportunity announced in 2026. The crisis-response infrastructure is being built right now — and the spiritual dimension is simply missing from it.

Source: SAMHSA appropriations, 2025–2026

The clinical code

The diagnostic language already exists — and was just expanded.

Z65.8 — Moral, Religious or Spiritual Problem — is a legitimate ICD-10 code, expanded in the DSM-5-TR to formally recognize that this distress can be clinically meaningful without being a mental illness. AWARE simply puts it in the responder's hand.

Source: DSM-5-TR · ICD-10-CM

The proof

It already exists. You can hold it tonight.

Most applicants describe something theoretical. We can hand someone a phone — a live, installable, AI-powered, voice-capable app, built and deployed from a pocket card. The concept is no longer a concept.

Live at awarenj.health

Stand with us

One tool. Four reasons to care.

A.W.A.R.E. NJ sits at an intersection most initiatives never reach — and every angle is genuine, not a stretch.

Funders & foundations

Law enforcement wellness, behavioral-health crisis reform, religious and interfaith equity, and healthcare-cost reduction — four non-overlapping funding stories pointing at the same tool.

Start a conversation

Ambassadors & advocates

Officers, chaplains, clinicians, and lived-experience voices who know firsthand why this matters — and can carry it into the rooms we can't reach alone.

Become an ambassador

Departments & partners

CIT programs, hospital systems, 988 centers, and academic partners ready to pilot, train, and measure what changes when responders are equipped for this.

Explore a pilot

A person in crisis is speaking about God.
The next sixty seconds decide everything.