New initiative between CMHA and London police hopes to support callers in crisis through diversion program

A diversion program aimed at helping people calling in crisis links the Canadian Mental Health Association and London police. CTV’s Reta Ismail reports.

The Crisis Call Diversion Program hopes to connect mental health and addiction workers from CMHA Thames Valley with LPS’ 911 call centre.

“The nice thing about this is that when someone calls 911, if they’re experiencing a mental health crisis, a situational stressor, and they didn’t know where else to call, so they picked up the phone and called 911, they can get attached to the most appropriate services, and the mental health experts,” said Lori Griffith, Director of Crisis and Access at CMHA Thames Valley

Griffith said the trained mental health and addiction workers can de-escalate situations, connect individuals to suitable community-based resources, and reduce the number of unnecessary hospital visits or involvement with the criminal justice system.

“When we first created it [Crisis Centre], we didn’t realize that one of our biggest populations that would come and access services here is our youth population, about 34 per cent of the people that walk through our doors here at the 24/7 Crisis Center are youth,” she explained.

The program soft launched last December, and to date, it has supported 94 interventions, of which only 37 calls required police response. The program also issued 92 referrals to community supports.

“Our mental health worker has the capability of calling the person afterwards to make sure that all the referrals kind of came to fruition, that they, you know, followed through on them,” said Griffith.

CMHA Thames Valley and London police are partnered on several other initiatives as well.

The Crisis Centre, located at 648 Huron St. in London, is open 24/7, 365 days a year. Anyone who is in need of immediate support, is encouraged to drop in.

“If at any point you’re feeling that connection or inability to talk to someone would make things a little bit better in your life, please just walk through our doors,” said Griffith.

CMHA also encourages people who don’t feel comfortable, or can’t make it to the Crisis Centre in person, to utilize their ‘Reach Out’ and ‘988’ options.

Both streams offer 24/7 support through phone call or text.