Response works out

Cairns mental health team earns praise

FAR Northern emergency workers are among the best in the state in responding to mental health-related call-outs due to their collaborative approach.

Senior Constable Angela Evans and clinical nurse Shelley Wallace are the team behind the Cairns Mental Health Co-responder project.

The two woman have specialist mental health training and respond as a team to situations where someone may be experiencing a mental health crisis.

A review of the project, released yesterday, showed the approach worked.

For Sen-Constable Evans the projects hits close to home.

She has a niece with schizoaffective disorder.

“I wish we had a co-responder that I could talk to in Brisbane who could help her. I think it’s vital,” she said.

“Police only have two options, take the person to hospital or leave them.”

The co-responder team has myriad options, including acute care in the home or referral to a GP preventing unnecessary forced admission to hospital, which can be quite traumatic for someone with a mental illness.

“We can also identify gaps in services,” Ms Wallace that.

“We’ve got that never-giveup attitude.

“We will find a way to help.”

Cairns Police Inspector Brett McKay said the report spoke for itself and proved that their approach worked.

The co-responder project arose in 2011 from the tri-agency Mental Health Intervention Project between QPS, Queensland Health and Queensland Ambulance, which had been operating in Cairns since 2007.