Toronto moves closer to creating crisis response teams as mental health first responders for non-violent calls

Thestar.com
Jan. 28, 2021
David Rider

Toronto is a big step closer to dispatching crisis workers -- not police officers -- to help people undergoing mental health distress and not threatening violence.

Mayor John Tory’s executive committee voted Wednesday to endorse a city staff proposal for a pilot project to create mental health teams to respond to non-violent calls.

If approved by city council next week, the project would dispatch teams of mental health professionals, trained in de-escalation and crisis intervention, in three areas -- Toronto’s northwest corner, parts of Scarborough and the downtown east area.

It would also see the development of an Indigenous-led crisis support service -- a move the city says recognizes the Indigenous population’s “negative experiences with policing.”

Residents who spoke to councillors via video link were strongly in favour of ending the days when Toronto police officers are primarily responsible for responding to 911 calls about people in mental distress.

“My own son was nine years old the first time somebody threatened to phone the police on him during a meltdown,” a mother told councillors.

“He told me later, ‘Mama, you know who they call the cops on? Bad guys.’ He wasn’t a bad guy. He was overwhelmed and terrified and the very threat of the police coming sent him spiraling.

“But I don’t blame the school official who told him that, or any of the hundreds of parents, or anyone, forced to call 911 on their own overwhelmed loved one because they don’t know of another option in an emergency, and I want another option.”

Another woman said she is 50 years old and was part of a February incident involving police. She told councillors that she was traumatized and would not feel safe calling police in another crisis.

No deputants rejected the idea and many called for the pilot project to be launched quicker and covering more of the city, eventually citywide.

The proposal would see the teams created and implemented between this year and 2024, starting with a budget of $1.7 million rising to between $7 million and $8 million per year.

Denise Campbell, the city’s executive director of social development, said creation of the teams is complex so it’s important to launch in a “measured” way. If her team sees opportunities to accelerate the rollout, they will take them, she added.

Campbell said “89 per cent of crisis calls are not of the violent nature and do not require a uniformed police officer.”

Asked who would respond to a crisis call involving a domestic dispute involving a knife, Campbell said likely both Toronto police and the mental health crisis team.

Developing protocols for such scenarios are an important part of the teams’ groundwork, she added.

Coun. Ana Bailao successfully proposed an amendment confirming that the guiding principle of the community crisis support service “will be the primary first responder to mental health crisis calls received during the pilot program and subsequent to full implementation.”

Early last year, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Afro-Indigenous woman, fell to her death from the 24th floor of her High Park apartment in the presence of police.

Officers had been called to help resolve a volatile family dispute and mental health situation that involved knives; Korchinski-Paquet’s mother wanted her daughter taken to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

In June, city council directed the city manager to develop the alternative model, setting off a months-long process that included extensive community consultation and a review of police call data to understand demand.