Province grants funding to county for mobile crisis response program
Health-care workers and police will soon provide front-line assistance on mental health and addiction crisis calls in Essex County municipalities serviced by the OPP.
Thanks to recently announced provincial Community Safety Grant funding of more than $1.1 million, the OPP and Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare are launching a new mobile crisis rapid response team with specially trained, uniformed officers joining crisis workers from HIGH, said OPP Insp. Glenn Miller during a news conference at the Essex County Civic Centre on Tuesday.
Miller said the co-response model will take a “more contemporary approach” to address the growing concerns of mental health and addiction emergencies by attempting to de-escalate situations, helping to prevent individuals from automatically being taken to hospital ERS.
“It is hoped the program will help reduce dependency on emergency room care and a reduction in EMS calls,” said Rob Moroz, integrated director of Community Mental Health at Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcentre.
“It will allow our crisis workers to be in immediate response mode with the OPP. Currently they’re on a call basis and respond after the calls. It’s going to be a more comprehensive and fast way to respond.”
The Ontario government announced the recipients of the
three-year community safety grant funding a week ago. The Essex County OPP received two of the grants, totalling $1,136,000.
The new mobile crisis rapid response team will service Tecumseh, Lakeshore, Essex, Kingsville and Leamington and will include teams trained in de-escalating situations involving either adults or youth (under the age of 16.)
The youth-based team will be staffed by an OPP officer and a clinician from HDGH’S Regional Children’s Centre. Teams will provide resources during a crisis as well as followup help after the crisis.
Miller said the enhanced response units will build on the work of the mental-health response unit, a partnership between the OPP and HIGH that currently provides adults with post-crisis support.
“These two programs will continue to do what is most important and that is to improve the safety and well-being of our residents,” Miller said. “We are confident that these programs will continue to save lives.”
Units will operate during “peak call times” Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
“The mental-health crisis is not confined to business hours nor to the walls of a hospital or community agency,” Moroz said. “I really wish that we could have these kinds of teams across the board and throughout Windsor and Essex County.”
Essex County Warden Gary Mcnamara said the “creative partnerships” will offer a “benchmark on what the rest of the province is probably attempting to do.”
“Mental-health and addiction issues know no municipal boundaries,” Mcnamara said. “(The new program) takes a lot of pressure off our EMS and certainly all our first responders.
“A little bit of intervention at the front end, it takes a lot of pressure off on the back end (and) will help greatly to reduce that hall(way) medicine and keep our officers where we really want them — to do proactive work in the communities,” he said.
But the most important thing, Mcnamara added, is it’s “saving lives.”
Windsor Police Service spokesman Sgt. Steve Betteridge said the Windsor Police Service was not involved in the provincial community service grant program.
The Chatham-kent Police Service will receive $1.7 million over the next three years for a number of community programs.
“The funding received goes directly toward our (CKPS) community mobilization unit, mobile crisis team, youth officer and public information officer,” Chief Gary Conn said in a news release.
Conn said the units work with community partners to mitigate “complex social issues” such as people suffering from mental health, drug addictions or homelessness. Property crimes are also addressed.