Peel Regional Police (PRP) and the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Peel Dufferin are teaming up to better provide mental health services in emergency situations.

The newly launched police service — known as the Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team (MCRRT) — pairs officers and crisis workers to respond to mental health emergencies reported through 911 calls.

The MCRRT program provides on-site assessment to those experiencing a crisis, connecting them with community services in the hopes of avoiding unnecessary trips to the hospital.

Despite already having services devoted to mental health, including a crisis hotline, there was nothing in place to respond to emergencies.

For Charlene Heyer, director of crisis services at CMHA Peel Dufferin, the program is bridging the gap for emergency calls.

“We did not have the ability to react in real time,” she said.

Instead, when people were experiencing mental health emergencies, police often had to respond to those calls alone.

Police, she said, often don’t have the specialized training to gauge a mental health emergency, and mostly end up bringing callers to the hospital — which is not always an ideal situation.

Not only do these hospital trips make the caller wait for hours to receive help, it also adds to the issue of hallway medicine.

According to Heyer, officers responded to 6,500 mental health issues last year — about 18 calls a day.

With the MCRRT, crisis workers are now able to assess the situation alongside officers and make an on-site decision as to whether the caller needs to go to the hospital immediately, or if they can instead be connected with local resources.

“We want to avoid unnecessary apprehensions,” said Heyer. “Individuals don’t want to be criminalized for having a mental health crisis.”

Crisis worker Angelica Fasulo says the partnership between police officers and care workers has been extremely helpful — despite only launching on Jan. 13, 2020.

She also highlighted the importance of collaboration.

“Although we are a partnership, we have a different lens of what we do,” she said.

Before the program launched, officers and care workers went through an extensive collaborative training period.

This allowed both parties to become comfortable with each other and explore the two different skill sets they bring together.

Fasulo explained it as an exchange of skills — police offering safety tips and strategies and crisis workers bringing their expertise to the situation.

“You work with an officer for 12 hours; you communicate about different strategies. When I’m not working with these officers maybe they will go out and remember some of those things that we talked about,” said Fasulo.

Dr. Katy Kamkar, a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), echoed that message.

“Working as a team with diverse experience, it can definitely add incremental value,” she said.

“When everybody is trained it’s very much a collaborative care approach.”

Dr. Kamkar also noted the program could “reduce stigma increase” and allow callers to feel comfortable to speak with both crisis workers and officers.

Since launching last month, the MCRRT program has been able to defer 70 per cent of calls from hospital, according to Heyer.

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The program also looks to build long-term solutions.

By following up with callers after the initial situation and checking in on them, the service isn’t a one-time deal.

“We’re trying to be proactive and prevent future calls,” said Heyer. “We’re trying to get a leg-up on this situation.”

On the front lines, Fasulo has seen positive community feedback.

“When we go out on the road, the clients are gravitating to us. We’ve been able to build that rapport with people; people have said that they are happy to have this interaction,” she said.

Peel isn’t the first region to launch an MCCRT team.

Multiple cities have had this program in place for many years.

The Peel model was based on the Hamilton project — the first in Ontario — and an upgrade on Hamilton’s Crisis Outreach and Support Team (COAST), a two-decade partnership between police and St Joseph’s Healthcare.

“The Hamilton program was the gold standard,” said Heyer. “It took them 17 years to do what we were able to do in five.”

The COAST program was a second-tier response, where officers would call for assistance after attending the scene and assessing a call as a mental health crisis. The MCCRT sends both a mental health professional and officer to the initial call.

According to Hamilton police, since starting their MCCRT program in 2013, they’ve seen their apprehension rates drop from 66 per cent to 25 per cent.

“The findings (from these programs) have been positive such as that other cities have been wanting to implement the program,” said Dr. Kamkar.

Currently the program is operating in two of Peel’s five police divisions.

Heyer hopes it will eventually be expanded throughout the region.

“The officers have been amazing; they have been unbelievably supportive. It’s been a long time coming,” she said.

Feb. 6, 2020 — Correction: This story was updated from a previously published version to indicate the number of calls diverted to 70 per cent and to correct the number of emergency calls received to 6,500.