Developing a best practice model for mental health crisis care: A community engaged approach

When experiencing mental health crisis, many people rely on emergency services such as 9-1-1 dispatchers, paramedic services, police services and hospital emergency department services. Emergency response to mental health calls has recently gained significantly greater attention, recognizing that these interactions may have substantial, potentially life and death consequences for those already in distress, particularly for marginalized communities. Many first response services lack sufficient resources and have few options to offer when providing care. This project brings together community-based service providers and emergency care providers to develop a best practice model for response to mental health crisis care. Specifically, the student internship within this project will focus on analysis and synthesis of existing mental health program data from Middlesex-London Paramedic Service’s alternate destination program. These findings will support the ongoing work of the partner organization, contribute to manuscript preparation, and broadening the understanding of options for emergency mental health response in the larger Canadian community.

Faculty Supervisor:

Polly Ford-Jones

Student:

Partner:

Mental Health Research Canada;Middlesex-London Paramedic Service

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration); Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning

Program: