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Training Given to Police to Improve Interactions with Mentally Ill

Sunday, 23 September 2012 at 04:20

Oxford OPP and the Canadian Mental Health Association of Oxford are teaming up to ensure police have the necessary training to deal with mental health situations. Crisis Team Leader Lynn Wardell says officers will go through the Crisis Intervention Training Program. "The CIT Program provides police with three to four days of training depending on the way the training is set up with respect to different components of mental illness and symptoms of different specific illnesses. So the police will have a better understanding of some of the symptoms if they go on call and there happens to be somebody experiencing a mental health crisis," said Wardell. There's about 24-30 hours of training involved. Chief of Woodstock Police Rod Freeman says there's a great deal of positives to come from the partnership. "The solutions is going to come certainly from a strong partnership. It's going to come from improved training for police officers. A relationship building exercise between mental health workers and police officers. And hopefully we'll be able to direct people to various levels of assistance. Not necessarily from arrest and right to the hospital, but maybe counselling or assessment mechanisms before we get to that extreme," said Freeman. The goal is to have all police officers in Oxford trained.

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