The Integrated Mobile Crisis Unit being piloted in Saint John with the local police force has restructured just 10 months after it launched.
The unit, funded through Horizon Health Network and New Brunswick’s Department of Health, was designed to respond to calls related to mental health that police found themselves overwhelmingly responding to in the day-to-day patrols.
Mary Ann Campbell, a professor in psychology and criminal justice at the University of New Brunswick Saint John campus, says the changes came about through direct feedback and data they were getting from the two mental health nurses and two female police officers responding to the calls.
“So we ended up needing to have a better way of meeting the needs of supporting police officers when responding to calls for service that involve mental health crisis but not necessarily use those resources where they are not needed,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
Campbell said the dedicated officers were finding themselves at crisis calls where they were not needed, or other patrol officers found themselves needing the crisis unit.
The two female officers have returned to their perspective units with plenty more experience, Campbell said.
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The mobile crisis unit
Officers within the united received specialized training and orientation in mental health crisis intervention techniques, including de-escalation, the release said.
According to SJPF, the officers were working in plain clothes. Those officers were being paid through the regional health authority.
The New Brunswick Health Department has designated $900,000 over three years to this project. The goal, the department said back in October, was to learn and adapt policies and best practices.
No one from Horizon Health Network was available for an interview Wednesday but provided an email statement to Global News.
“As part of the recent six-month evaluation of this pilot project, Horizon’s Integrated Mobile Crisis Response Team (iMCRT) has – in fact – enhanced our model of service delivery to include greater staffing support to police when responding to mental health crises in the community,” said Kristina Gordon, Horizon Health Network’s manager of addiction and mental health services in Saint John.
The Saint John Police Force directed all questions about the mobile crisis unit to Horizon Health Network or the Department of Health on Wednesday.
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