No current crisis at Mobile Crisis, assistant executive director says
Its call load may have risen, but Regina’s Mobile Crisis Services is capable of handling it, says its assistant executive director.
“We’re always very busy,” said Jan Thorson. “In fact, our call load last year went up over 3,000 calls from the previous fiscal year. So we are certainly very busy, but our staff are very well trained and more than competent to respond. Of course, we would love to have more staff but that’s something we’re working on constantly.”
Mobile Crisis was one of several organizations called to testify at a recent inquest into the April 2018 death by suicide of 13-yearold Kaleab Schmidt. He and his younger sisters were adopted from Ethiopia and came to live in the Balgonie area in 2011.
The inquest heard Schmidt was subject to racism and bullying in the time leading up to his death, with some witnesses drawing connections between those incidents and his decision to end his own life.
The inquest also heard about numerous attempts made by the Schmidt family to seek help in the time leading up to the suicide, including from Mobile Crisis.
A former employee who took a call from Schmidt’s mother told the inquest the non-profit organization is struggling with resources and training.
“I think a lot of frontline workers are understaffed, worn out (and) not being debriefed properly,” Shayla Leier testified during the inquest.
The coroner’s jury returned with recommendations stating Mobile Crisis needs to have training in areas like suicide prevention and mental wellness to mirror that offered to Social Services staff.
It also recommended more staff is needed so crisis calls are always answered by a person rather than a machine.
But Thorson, a crisis worker for 26 years, said those things are already done.
“We provide extensive training to our staff,” she said. “In fact, our staff just completed modules on post-traumatic stress and mental wellness. We have more training coming up.”
She said staff receive 400 hours of training before they’re hired as full-time crisis workers and that donations have allowed them to do extra training this year.
Where there are differences in training between Mobile Crisis and Social Services comes down to differences in the nature of their work, Thorson said.
Leier testified when Mobile Crisis workers are out in the field responding to calls, incoming calls go to an answering service.
Thorson said that’s true and further explained the service isn’t a machine but rather real people who gather necessary information and text it to Mobile Crisis staff, who then respond “as quickly as they can.”
“We’ve never used an answering machine,” Thorson said. “We’ve always had a live answering service. They do a terrific job. We don’t want people to get a machine when they call us. And that’s why that’s never happened.”
Thorson said they have four crisis workers and a team leader on the job once Social Services hours end for the day.