A mental health crisis response team is now available 24-7 on the streets of Thunder Bay.
Thunder Bay Police, the Thunder Bay branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre are highlighting their Integrated Mobile Police Assessment Crisis Team (IMPACT).
Inspector Derek West explains the IMPACT program is an expansion of their mobile crisis response team, and will run as a one-year pilot.
He says they’ve responded to 71 calls since the pilot began on January 4th.
Officers are paired with mental health workers and immediately respond to all mental health-related calls police receive.
“The goal of the pilot is to reduce police time in the emergency department, and divert individuals from having to attend the emergency department while providing supports for individuals in the community,” West explains, adding the goal is to provide “better service, support and intervention at the right time, right place and by the right service.”
Jennifer Hyslop is the CEO of the Thunder Bay CMHA, and says IMPACT’s 24-hour approach is a big improvement over their previous partnership, which was only available for 12 hours of the day.
“It was a huge barrier to only be able to operate from 2PM to 2AM. There was a high percentage of calls that the Joint Mobile Team was not able to respond to, because they were already out on a call, or it was outside of their working hours,” Hyslop explains.
Lisa Beck, the Director of Trauma, ED & Critical Care at the Regional Hospital, has praise for the program’s goal of reducing or avoiding visits to the hospital. She says that’s been a big help during the pandemic and the stay-at-home order.
“It is so important that we, whenever possible, try and maintain residents within their home, within their home environment, preventing patients from having to come to the emergency department unnecessarily, if they can be supported in the community with those resources and the IMPACT team,” she says.
In addition to the IMPACT program, the CMHA will still operate a two-person crisis response mobile team from 2 PM to 2 AM, seven days a week.