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By Justine Kelsie

PACT seeing success, room for growth in Grande Prairie

May 2, 2018 | 12:52 PM

At a recent presentation to a city committee, the RCMP said the Police and Crisis Team (PACT) would benefit from becoming a 24 hour a day service.

Right now, there are two nurses provided by Alberta Health Services and two officers that work to de-escalate mental health crises situations. The teams also do proactive community outreach, check-ins, and referrals to community resources.

“We will take the call just like any RCMP unit. We operate out of the detachment just like them. The nurse has an enhanced database because they access to Alberta Health records. We take that information combined with the police information and we will have a greater understanding of the client we are going to meet. Better than if someone only had access to one of those databases,” said Constable Darren Jensen, one of the PACT unit members.

In a study by Dr. Connie Korpan with GPRC, 40 per cent of the calls the unit attended were high risk in the 2016/2017 year while 20 per cent were calls involving attempted suicide.

The research also found that 60 per cent of calls done by the team are de-escalated. De-escalating a call can mean avoiding unnecessary arrest or hospital visits.

“It is possible that some calls still need to go the Emergency Room (ER) or use continued resources, and (PACT) speeds up that aspect. There are cases where that is not necessary. You don’t want to use resources like the ER or others unnecessarily. So, as soon as you avoid using those already tapped out resources, you are saving the community money. It has a trickle-down effect,” said Korpan.

A survey was conducted on community agencies as well PACT members. Education for those involved and for the community was highlighted as a need.

“Myself and the other Constable have been part of a pilot program that is being rolled out to emergency services in Alberta. It is supposed to educate them further on the Mental Health Act, how to apply it, and what to look for when dealing with people with mental illness and how to help them. That is still in its infancy,” said Jensen.

Even with the amount of education provided, Jensen says more would be welcomed. He says expanding the PACT unit could not only help the members cover the area 24 hours a day, but it would also help spread education to the public.

“As it stands now, I would love to go to different community agencies about what we are and what we do. Our call volume is as such that we are so busy that it isn’t feasible at this point, between the active calls we are taking while we are on shift and the referrals we are following up on,” said Jensen.

The city has vowed to bring up their support for additional members for PACT at an upcoming meeting with RCMP K Division. 

by Justine Kelsie