Alternatives to detention/sectioning under the Mental Health Act 1983. Can you help with suggestions?

As part of her work for the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, Dorothy Gould is trying to collect as many examples as possible of alternatives to detention/sectioning.

Because the Review is drawing primarily on a medical model, she would particularly like to hear of non-medical alternatives, including ones which are user-led and/or stem from black and minority ethnic groups and other particularly disadvantaged groups.

If you are able to help, please can you send information to her at gould.dorothy@gmail.com, using the questions below:

1(a) What alternative services have helped you to avoid detention/sectioning and (b) How did they help you to avoid it?

or 2(a) What alternatives would have helped you to avoid detention/sectioning (if available) and (b) How would they have helped you to avoid it?

3(a) Are there useful alternatives to detention/sectioning which you have heard about from others and (b) If, so, is there information which you can forward about these and their benefits?