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IMPACT crisis response program proving 'wildly successful,' says manager

Program sees mental health workers and police team up to better address mental health crisis calls, but demand not there yet for 24/7 service
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During a five-month period earlier this year, a team of crisis response coordinators working alongside Guelph police helped divert 130 people from hospital, keeping police officers active in the community and reducing the demand on hospital resources, as well as potentially lessening trauma for the individuals in crisis.

“That is wildly successful,” proclaimed Aleah Wagner, manager of the Integrated Mobile Police And Crisis Team (IMPACT) for the Canadian Mental Health Association of Waterloo Wellington, which funds the program. “Police officers aren’t all trained in mental health in the same way that we are. We can’t expect them to be social workers.”

Launched in Guelph in 2015, IMPACT involves five mental health professionals stationed at Guelph police headquarters who attend crisis calls, once deemed safe by police, to help determine the immediate needs and safety level of individuals involved. Ultimately, it’s police who determine if someone needs to be apprehended and taken for a mental health assessment.

“A big success of this program … is the number of calls that are being diverted from the hospital,” commented Const. Kyle Grant, public liaison officer for Guelph Police Service. “Before the IMPACT program came to be … the police likely would have apprehended those 130 people and brought them to the hospital for mental health assessment.”

Between April and August, IMPACT was involved in 173 calls to police, of which 130 people were diverted from hospital and 482 after-the-fact referrals to community services were made.

While those numbers are similar to what officials have seen in the past, they accumulated a little differently, notes Wagner. Calls were down early in that timeframe but grew “exponentially” in the latter part.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, I think people's mental health wasn’t quite as affected when people thought it was going to be a few weeks. The amount of calls we received was a lot less because people weren’t really leaving their homes,” she explained. “Then as it got extended a little bit longer, people started to leave their house again, neighbours started to see things, we started to get those kinds of calls again.”

The IMPACT team is available from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends. During other times, individuals in crisis are encouraged to call the Here 24/7 hotline for assistance.

Despite the success of the program, Wagner sees no need to make it available around the clock, 365 days per year – something Guelph police would welcome.

“The call volumes wouldn’t support us having staff on,” she said, noting she envisions the program expanding its hours by 60 minutes on both ends, as well as on weekends. “That will be something that we could explore.”

In order to do so, CMHA would require a funding bump from the provincial government, provided through the Local Health Integration Network. 

“If more IMPACT mental health clinicians are hired, we will find the space for them,” said Grant, adding police are “very supportive” of any program expansion that comes. “If there was that opportunity, we would definitely be in favour of that.”

Rather than funding IMPACT to go 24/7, Wagner said she’d prefer to see the money go to enhancing community services and eliminating wait lists so people are less likely to get to the point of crisis.

“Crisis response work is hugely important. Ongoing work is also very important,” she said, referring to things such as flexible assertive community treatment teams that support people whose mental health fluctuates. Those teams can include an occupational therapist, social worker, support coordinators, nurses, psychiatry, etc. “If we had more teams like that and more access like that, people may not get to this level of crisis.”


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Richard Vivian

About the Author: Richard Vivian

Richard Vivian is an award-winning journalist and longtime Guelph resident. He joined the GuelphToday team as assistant editor in 2020, largely covering municipal matters and general assignment duties
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