City of Brandon’s new crisis response unit pairs police with mental health clinicians

Brandon Police have launched a new crisis response unit with help from the provincial government.

The city of Brandon’s crisis response unit is getting $290,000 in funding from the province.

According to a Friday news release from the province, the program was launched last fall as part of a joint initiative between Brandon Police Service (BPS) and Prairie Mountain Health (PMH).

The unit pairs police officers with a mental health clinician from PMH.

The initiative was created to de-escalate situations and provide clinical intervention on calls where people are experiencing a mental health crisis—seven days a week.

Brandon Police Chief Tyler Bates said the unit seeks to provide a compassionate response to community members.

“It’s really a human-centred, supportive, integrated care response to what is a medical issue. And so often people that are in a mental health crisis come into contact with police, and a health issue becomes criminalized,” Bates said.

The group includes two full-time police officers, three full-time mental health clinicians, and peer support workers.

Bates noted that the relationship between the unit members can help de-escalate the concerns of clients using the program.

“Very often what we see in these types of interactions is that relationships have previously been established. So before we ever end up in a crisis situation… our crisis response unit members have had proactive engagements with these clients.

‘They’ve built relationships, they’ve established that trust, so when they show up, even though one of them is in uniform and identifiable as a police officer, they are looked at as a supportive agency and not in any way as a threat that would escalate that situation,” Bates explained.

“They know that these people that are arriving in tandem, the police officer and the public health nurse, are there to help them.”

Bates said there have been around 40 interventions a month since the program launched.

The funding is part of a continued annual contribution from the province.

-With files from CTV’s Daniel Halmarson