Jennifer Lavoie, an expert in mental health crisis at Laurier University, is excited to see the Toronto pilot begin its work this month.
Toronto announced that four community partners will be working together to support community health, wellness, and safety by introducing an alternative crisis response team that will be community-led, person-centred, trauma-informed, and focused on harm reduction.
“I think it’s a good thing that’s being researched and evaluated, because mental health crises have a real myriad of different kinds of mental health crises and some require a police response and some do not,” Lavoie said.
“I think it’s a good thing if the dispatching is done correctly, and I’m excited about the pilot to see where it goes,” she said.
Four anchor agencies will lead the project, with two beginning this month, the city stated. The TAIBU Community Health Centre will respond to calls in the northeast quadrant of the city while the 2-Spirited People of the First Nations will lead in the downtown west pilot.
Two other organizations, the Gerstein Crisis Centre for the downtown east pilot, and the Canadian Mental Health Association Toronto for the northwest pilot, will be operational later, the city said.
Lavoie told Humber News that when people call in for crisis services, they are put through a special dispatch to determine if police need to be involved.
“They’ll be put through a special dispatch where they ask for a crisis response bill, they’ll be asked a number of questions to identify whether or not police need to come or not,” she said. “So, I’m very interested in that kind of triaging that they’re going to do there.”
Lavoie said Toronto would save money if it could determine which crises need police.
“If that’s successful, and you know, getting the right services to two people, so I think it’s a good thing because we don’t, there’ll be massive cost savings,” she said.
Corinne Hart, an associate professor and expert in harm reduction at Ryerson University, believes the pilot is a good idea, as mental health issues are turned into criminal issues when law enforcement is involved.
“Mental health issues are turned into criminal issues, and then are turned into law enforcement issues, and this takes away some of the risks of people having poor outcomes that are not supportive,” she said.
Hart said in the past, people in crisis may be less inclined to call for help, as they don’t know the outcome if police are involved. But it would feel safer if they knew who was coming, she said.
“I probably wouldn’t call the police if a family member of mine was in a mental health crisis because I would not be sure of the outcome,” Hart said.
“If I knew that the police were not coming with guns, or the police were not coming. I would be far more likely to reach out for help,” she said. “Even in terms of wellness checks, we’ve had enough problems where people with wellness checks have ended up dead.
“And so if I were a person at risk, I wouldn’t call,” Hart said.
Mohamed Shuriye, the manager of Toronto’s Policing Reform Project, said residents in four pilot areas can expect a community-led response to respond to non-emergency and non-violent calls related to persons in crisis made to 911.
“The Community Crisis Support Service pilots will be comprised of a multidisciplinary team of crisis workers with extensive training covering first aid, de-escalation, situational awareness, and field training,” he said.
“They will respond to calls and support individuals and families in crisis to help de-escalate and connect them to post-crisis supports,” Shuriye said.
He said the crisis pilot is beneficial for Toronto because of its underinvestment in mental health treatment and support over several decades.
“They are falling into distress, resulting in increased interactions with police, who have essentially become default first responders of the mental health care system for those experiencing crisis,” Shuriye said.
“Using law enforcement to address health issues creates service barriers and risks for many Torontonians, particularly Indigenous, Black and equity-deserving communities,” he said.
“Residents, communities, and organizations have called on the City of Toronto to reimagine a new model of response, and these pilots are part of that reimagine and allow us to build a community-led response,” Shuriye said.