Law enforcement agencies frequently receive and respond to calls about crises of emotionally disturbed persons in the community. However, police face an increasing number of difficulties in responding to crisis calls due to challenges such as a perceived lack of training and referral expertise. Toronto’s Mobile Crisis Intervention Team Program was put in place to address some of these challenges. Piloted in 2000, this program incorporates nurses with mental health training as part of specially trained police response teams. As it is set to expand in Toronto, researchers at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health evaluated the implementation of the program. The evaluation report provides valuable insights into stakeholder perceptions of the processes involved in implementing the program and of resulting program procedures.
To find out more, you can read EENet’s Research Report Round-up of the report on the EENet website. Research Report Round-ups are brief summaries of research reports, presented in a user-friendly format.