Crisis response interactive pathways flowchart

Crisis responses are a critical part of an effective mental health and addiction system. However, crisis response pathways are hard to navigate, fragmented, and patchy, and many people don’t get the help they need.

In November 2025 we published Urupare mōrearea: Crisis responses monitoring report. For this report, we worked with Arkturus to develop a Crisis Response Interactive Pathways flowchart. Today we are making this flowchart publicly available.

This interactive flowchart (alluvial diagram) uses national data collection on mental health and addiction specialist services from Programme for the Integration of Mental Health Data (PRIMHD). It shows the pathways of people who are entering mental health and addiction services in crisis and how they journey through these services in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The flowchart tracks people who are in crisis journeys from first contact—through Crisis Attendance, Acute Inpatient care, or Crisis Respite—for up to 30 days without revealing any individual identifying information. The flowchart allows exploration by region, age, ethnicity, year, and initial response setting, providing an overview of service use patterns.

By turning complex data into an easy-to-read diagram, this flowchart visualises patterns in tāngata whaiora pathways, providing insights into where experiences differ and opportunities for improvement, supporting better planning of crisis responses. The flowchart can inform decision makers, support advocacy for improvements, and make pathways to mental health, substance harm, and addiction support more understandable for people with lived experience, whānau, and people working within the sector.

Link to the flowchart

The interactive flowchart is available for use by anyone with an interest in modelling client pathways from various entry points to completion.

To protect privacy, results for small population groups are not shown. This includes groups or pathway steps created through the application of multiple filters. 

Read our user guide (PDF 1.8 MB)

Visit the interactive flowchart