You are here: Home / Media / Police trained to handle mental health crises

Police trained to handle mental health crises

The NSW Police are trialling a two-year specialist training program to tackle the rising number of incidents related to mental health issues. Officers will be trained to deal with mentally ill people safely, reducing the risk of injury during crisis situations reports Candice Chung in the South Sydney Herald of September 2007.

The program will be tested in three local area commands – Eastern Beaches, Penrith and Tuggerah Lakes – and managed by a specially set-up mental health unit. “Our reports and statistics indicate that mental health-related incidents are on the rise,” mental health intervention team commander David Donohue said.

The police dealt with over 21,000 cases related to mental health in the past year, highlighting the need for appropriate skills to cope with the rising mental health workload.

“This program is about improving the awareness of front-line police in relation to mental health. It’s also about reducing the risk of injuries and learning how to deal with people by using de-escalation techniques,” Mr Donohue said.

At the end of two years, the trial will be independently evaluated by Charles Sturt University. Mr Donohue said that many younger officers will benefit from learning the skills that would normally come with “life experience.”

“We find that younger police may have limited exposure to mental illness and sometimes it becomes a perplexing issue for them. A lot of younger officers have been coming to me and saying they’re looking forward to getting further skills in dealing with people with mental illness,” he said.

In July this year, a report launched by Wesley Mission revealed that more than eight in ten Australians have either experienced mental illness or have a friend or family member who is affected. The telephone survey of 600 people in Sydney and Newcastle also found that the prevalence of mental illness in the society is much higher than expected.

Laurie Besant from Darlinghurst outreach group Rough Edges agrees that mental illness is a growing concern in the inner city. “We want the police to act on situations, but they also need to be supported,” Mr Besant said. “You have someone walk through the door and you may not know what you are dealing with until the person displays some of their behaviours.

“Inner city areas such as Redfern, Surry Hills are the places where there is a high concentration of people with mental illness because of the social make-up. So training the police in those areas would be very useful.”

With the rising popularity of psychoactive drugs such as Ice and methamphetamines, there has been a parallel increase in the number of incidents relating to drug-induced psychosis. “A lot of people have drug and alcohol problems and metal illness,” Wayside Chapel Director of Human Services Elma Fleming said. “The reality is quite often you need a mental health bed and there’s not one available. So the person who should be in care is out on the street.”

Ms Fleming said that Kings Cross police deal with mentally ill people “with tolerance and understanding,” but their work is often time consuming and involves frequent confrontation with intoxicated individuals who may become violent.

“Quite often we see somebody who’s been awake for three days and three nights because they’ve been so iced up. And the behaviours in these people are really sad to watch... Some of them become quite violent because they are totally disoriented. And when the police try to help them, they perceive it as someone trying to attack them,” she said.

“There was a young man recently who had large tufts of hair missing, pulled out by the roots. He was banging his head against the window – which eventually broke with the force of his head. The police had to be called and they dealt with the incident with great sensitivity.”

The mental health training program will begin in January next year. The NSW government will assess whether the program will roll-out to the rest of the state following its two-year trial.

Source South Sydney Herald September 2007 - www.southsydneyherald.com.au