UVic study shows benefits of integrating police with mental health teams

Yesterday, VicPD Chief Manak and representatives from UVic and Island Health addressed findings from their 2024 Integrating Municipal Police Officers onto Assertive Community Treatment (IMPACT) teams report at VicPD headquarters on Caledonia Ave.

Out of the gate, Manak made clear the interface between police and mental health calls will alway exist. “We know that where there is violence, threats of violence, weapons that are present or criminality or some immediate threat to life.. does require a police response,” he said.

That link between them is clear from the way interactions (occurrences) between ACT officers, patrol officers and clients are coded and documented using VicPDs Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system. The most common type of occurrence reported is social disorder followed by mental health.

VicPD has had integrated officers on ACT teams since 2007. The teams, which now include five with up to three officers, are typically made up of mental health professionals including psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, community outreach workers, and peer support workers. The stated aim of the program is to create individualized treatment plans to help people live more independently and to reduce their exposure to hospitalization, incarceration and homelessness.

A VicPD statement issued about the findings said “This report challenges the notion that police should not play a role in supporting these individuals and underscores the importance of collaboration between police officers and health professionals.”

In their earlier 2019 IMPACT report, “Interviewees noted that the presence of ACT officers was enough, in many cases to encourage productive behaviours such as medication compliance, on-time court appearances, and appropriate interactions with service staff and fellow residents—behaviours that reduce the risk of hospitalization or incarceration.”

“We are so fortunate in ACT South Island to have police embedded in our teams, that’s quite unique across the province,” said Echo Kulpas, Island Health manager of mental-health services unit.

“What came through in this research” Echo said “was that not only are we reducing target behaviours we want to reduce and increasing access to needed supports, but we are also building relationships where people feel an increased sense of safety and autonomy in their own recovery journey over time.”

Eligible clients for the ACT team include individuals experiencing serious, diagnosed and ongoing mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression that often results in some psychotic symptoms.

UVic researcher Erica Woodin, said “ACT officers get to know the client and are able to adjust their responses based on what they know about what is in the best interest of a clients’ well-being.”

“We are helping and supporting people before they actually go down the spectrum where they are having a full blown crisis we see play out in all communities, whether it’s  in Victoria or all across the province and that makes front-page news and leads to really terrible outcomes where peoples safety is put at risk,” Manak said.

When asked about what might have changed since the end of the 2019 report, Catherine Costigan said “We don’t know if it would still hold true but our sense is the ACT teams are operating the same as they would have pre-pandemic.”

Victoria’s crime severity index number rose in 2023 due to an increase in reports of non-violent crimes while the index number for violent crime was down more than 9% from the previous year.

Because of the frequent overlap between mental health and substance use, it is important to note overdose poisoning calls in BC leaped 25% from 2022 after a 31% climb from 2020 to 2021. By July of 2021, overdose deaths in the province had eclipsed 2019 annual totals. So, it can’t be business and treatment as usual, pre-pandemic.

What has changed, according to the report, is the way police are interpreting interactions with clients. Police have a certain amount of discretion in terms of how they want to interpret the behaviours and occurrences. In the report, the types of labels and coding for occurrences used shifts significantly over time.

Echo explained that “Re-classification is probably bringing behaviour identification more into what is accurate because, with our MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the police department, we are able to share parts of that person’s history that we might not be able to share if if was a patrol responding to an emergent situation and so that allows a current behaviour in the context of a previous history and that makes a difference in what we know to be true about the drivers behind a behaviour.”

By far, the most common type of police occurrence experienced by ACT clients overall was Social Order.

The earlier 2019 IMPACT report states “Several social service providers thought that police officers on ACT teams were not a good use of funds, and that police were only involved on ACT teams because of a lack of resources as well as many gaps in the system overall.”

Some of those gaps persist.

When questioned about what those gaps are, despite the presence of the ACT team, Manak said, “There is no one thing that is going to fix the situation we currently find ourselves in.”

Speaking to multiple local news outlets reporting on the obvious overwhelm in local ER’s such as Royal Jubilee Hospital, in response to individual mental-health and addiction crises and how ACT teams may work to relieve it, Echo said, “It is our objective to help people stay out of institutions” and “We are at capacity. We are trying within our limited budgets, to keep up with the changing needs of the community.”