Police in Orillia are responding to an increasing number of mental health calls, and they’re hoping for some additional resources.
“We’re getting more mental health calls for service than domestic violence calls for service,” Insp. Veronica Eaton, Orillia OPP commander, said this week following an Orillia Police Services Board meeting.
While statistics about local mental health calls for service are not available, numbers for domestic violence calls are, which can provide some perspective to the mental health calls. In 2017, Orillia OPP reported 769 domestic violence occurrences. They responded 51 in January 2018.
Not all of the mental health calls result in situations police need to be involved in.
“People sometimes don’t know what else to do, so they’ll call us,” Eaton said.
Mayor Steve Clarke experienced that first-hand last week.
Clarke and other area mayors were delivering Meals on Wheels during Helping Hands’ annual March for Meals campaign.
“One of the last deliveries we made was one of the most interesting situations I’d found myself in in quite some time,” he said. “This was an unfortunate soul who had almost no grasp on reality.”
The woman, who had multiple personality disorder, was calling 911 when the mayor and volunteers arrived with her meal.
Clarke commended the officers who attended. However, it was time that could have spent on more urgent police matters.
“We’re always happy to help,” Eaton said, but added mental health calls often “take a significant amount of time.”
The OPP is working with Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) to address the issue. The CMHA has applied for a grant that would allow for mental health crisis workers to go on ride-alongs and accompany officers on calls where they could be of assistance. They are waiting to learn whether they will receive the funding.
In December, CMHA workers joined the mobile joint response crisis team “to proactively visit prolific mental health persons in the community with a uniform officer in efforts to connect them to mental health resources to reduce calls for service in which police are not required,” Eaton noted in her report on the OPP’s goals and objectives.
The local force is working with the Orillia Community Action Network on the issue, which is becoming more prevalent across the province, the inspector noted.
Asked about what has led to the spike in mental health calls, Eaton said, “I wish I knew.”
“If we can figure out what’s causing it, we can figure out how to prevent it.”
