Funding to help Sudbury police respond to mental health, addictions crises
More than $4 million in provincial money to help run special programs
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Funding through the Community Safety and Policing Grant program will give the Greater Sudbury Police Service more flexibility in responding to persons in crisis, including those dealing with mental health or addictions issues, and serve to augment the already established Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team, members of the local police board were told this week.
Greater Sudbury Police Services Board members voted Wednesday to approve an agreement with the province for funding of a crisis call diversion program under the CSP Grant Local Priorities Funding Stream. GSPS is to receive $4,097,162.16 through the grant program, divided equally over three years through 2024-25.
Chief Paul Pedersen, who presented a report outlining the CSP funding agreement to the police board, said the funding will support “unique new growth programming here in Sudbury” and credited Deputy Chief Sara Cunningham and Insp. Daniel Despatie for not only preparing a strong grant application, “but building a program that is really going to serve us well.”
“It’s all under that umbrella of responding to persons in mental health crisis,” Pedersen said.
GSPS will receive $1,881,886.08 in funding for its Community Engagement Response Team to help augment staffing for the Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team, which consists of officers working in pairs with Health Sciences North crisis workers to respond to mental health and addictions emergencies reported through the 911 emergency communications centre. Crisis Workers can help de-escalate crisis situations, provide an on-site assessment and connect individuals to community services and supports.
Established in 2021 in partnership with HSN and Canadian Mental Health Association, the MCRRT program has already had a significant impact in allowing the police service to better respond to mental health calls and assist those in crisis, according to the report.
The addition of crisis workers embedded at the communications centre will allow them to deal directly with individuals while officers are en route, police board members were told, and may even prevent the need for an in-person response.
“This is really just building upon our Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team that we launched last year, in partnership with HSN,” explained Cunningham, who helped to spearhead the MCRRT initiative before being appointed as deputy chief in December. “This will now embed four social workers right into our 911 ECC. We’re seeing this take flight right across the province and it’s going to be that live-time, deal with this individual right there in the moment, with a crisis worker embedded right there in the comm centre, not having to dispatch officers and take them away from, potentially, other responsibilities, but giving them to the professionals trained in this area.”
The workers can also assist officers on the road, should they encounter someone in crisis, Cunningham added, as police can call in themselves and have a worker speak to the individual in real time.
“It’s definitely building upon something we’re already seeing much success in,” she said.
The Police Community Response Centre is to receive a total of $1,403,951.76 to help provide alternative types of police response. Those include online reporting for matters that do not require an immediate police response, which reduces the call volume directed to front-line operations and has improved overall service delivery for citizens to report crimes confidentially and with ease from remote locations, according to GSPS.
The Sexual Violence Response and Reduction Team will receive $811,162.32 to build on prior initiatives by examining incidents of so-called sextortion and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, which will be available to report through CopLogic. This will help to reduce sexual victimization in the community and support survivors of sexual violence in both physical and cyberspace, the police service said.
Outreach and the enhancement of partnerships will continue through the Community Sexual Assault Review Team, a multi-sectoral community partnership committed to examining police cases involving sexual assault or intimate partner violence to identify best practices and to enhance investigative processes, police board members were told on Wednesday.
“This is great news for us and great news for the service, that we’re able to deal with these incidents with professionals,” board chair Al Sizer said of the funding CSP announcement. “Not that our officers aren’t, but this certainly raises the bar in terms of what kind of service we can provide.”
bleeson@postmedia.com
Twitter: @ben_leeson
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