As emergency responders, police officers are often the first to arrive on the scene and interact with an individual who may be experiencing a mental health and/or substance use crisis. Over the past 20 years in Ontario, police services and mental health and addictions providers have come together in local communities to develop and implement various integrated models of mobile crisis response. This includes a natural evolution of models and a substantial increase in new mobile crisis response teams (MCRTs) in Ontario since 2015 without provincial guidance for a common approach.
For the past three years, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Ontario and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have co-chaired a provincial working group comprised of members engaged in the development and delivery of MCRTs. The working group also included representation by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Solicitor General and has been supported by the Provincial Human Services and Justice Coordinating Committee (P-HSJCC). Working group members came together to better understand the role, structure, efficacy, and function of mobile crisis response teams in Ontario.
The result of this collaboration is Developing Mobile Crisis Response Teams: A Framework for Ontario and Tools for Developing Mobile Crisis Response Teams in Ontario, resources designed to provide police services and their collaborative health partners in communities across the province with the tools necessary to establish effective mobile crisis response teams to support individuals experiencing a crisis.
Join us as we discuss these new resources, what we learned while developing them, and how Mobile Crisis Response Teams fit into the spectrum of crisis response services.
This webinar will include:
• An overview of Mobile Crisis Response Teams, including their purpose and the benefits of these teams
• An overview of the need for a guidance document and the development process for the Framework and Toolkit
• An overview of the content of the Framework and Toolkit
• A discussion surrounding the spectrum of crisis response models, including proposed topics for a future crisis response forum.
Presenters:
Candace Vena, CMHA Ontario
Erin Paquette, CMHA Ontario
Lisa Longworth, Ontario Provincial Police
Chantal Dupuis, Ontario Provincial Police
