Alternative to 911 for mental health crisis long overdue, advocates say

Advocates for some of the city's most vulnerable are applauding a new approach by the city to divert mental health and substance use crisis calls away from police and to mental health professionals.

"We are seeing an increase in the number of people in distress, people who are suffering from mental health issues. Things seem to be escalating more," says Peter Tilley, executive director of the Ottawa Mission shelter.

Tuesday, the city's community services committee approved a strategy for the first phase of a program that would see an alternative response to 9-1-1. The Ottawa Guiding Council for Mental Health and Addictions developed the program.

"Substance use is sometimes part of the reason why people are escalating, under the influence of substances, under the influence of whatever the street drug may be of choice that day," says Tilley. "Often times though, it is something that has happened earlier in the day that escalates through the day, so by the time they are here under the shelter, something sets them off and we are dealing with an escalating situation. We need rapid response when that happens and we need to be on top of that when it happens."

Most often, it is police responding to these calls, but now the city is to develop an alternative for mental health and substance crisis calls. A non 9-1-1 phone number would triage calls and dispatch response. A 24/7 mobile team would respond and be led by civilian professionals with expertise in mental health and substance use crises. The city says non-uniform responders would offer trauma informed and culturally appropriate crisis response services.

"I think it is going to be a great addition," says Tilley. "When we heard the mayor's announcement to have mental health and substance use professionals available on call to deal with our population, deal with domestics out in residential areas, I think it is a great initiative that people who are properly and fully trained in those areas can intervene and deal with those situations and bring things under calm before they escalate even further."

The program also includes follow-up care ,including referrals for ongoing support.

The program would initially run for three years in one specific area of the city that has not been determined yet, starting in 2024.

Wendy Muckle is the former executive director of Ottawa Inner City Health and continues to work with the city's most vulnerable including those with addictions. She says, "There has been a mix match to the mental health system when it comes to response. We have seen increasing rates of mental illness and mental health distress in the community over the years, but the mental health system itself has been so atrociously underfunded that police have had to pick up the slack. So many of the calls for service for mental health have gone to police instead of mental health professionals."

Muckle says mental health crises have grown since the pandemic, and need more funding and services. "We are coming out of a period of significant social disruption. Anyone who had pre-existing conditions didn't come out of the COVID period better," she says.

"Police are trained in many things, and many of them are very good at responding to mental health crises, but they are not mental health workers and it is not fair to expect them to be."

Muckle says she believes this alternative will be successful.

"It would nice to think we are leading the pack, but unfortunately Ottawa is behind. This kind of thing has been done in many jurisdictions around the world and has been very successful. There is a pilot project right now in Toronto that is relatively similar, which is further ahead than Ottawa and already showing promising results. I have no doubt that this will work." 

Muckle says it only makes for those trained in mental health crisis to respond to mental health calls.

"We need a system which directs people away from a crisis and gets them the help they need, so we have less crises going forward."