The Comox Valley is one of three communities in the province that will have a new community-led crisis response team for those experiencing a mental health or substance-use crisis thanks to new provincial funding.
At an announcement at Simms Millennium Park Friday (July 7), Jennifer Whiteside, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions noted the provincial government along with the support of the Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Division, is bringing new Peer Assisted Care Teams (PACT) to the Valley, along with Prince George and Kamloops.
The Province will invest $10 million in new and existing PACTs, which are mobile, community-led crisis teams that are trained to de-escalate mental-health crisis situations and provide trauma-informed, culturally safe support and free police time, explained Whiteside.
Currently, there are PACTs in the North Shore, New Westminster and Victoria.
“Most importantly, during this really stressful and vulnerable time, these individuals will be met in their period of crisis with care, with compassion, with empathy, and that will help them in their journey and their pathway to healing,” said Whiteside.
This year from January to May, PACTs have helped more than 700 people in crisis with minimal interaction from police.
“We know that this community-led approach has many benefits. It saves money. It frees up police resources to focus on crime and law enforcement … It helps to divert people from hospital emergency rooms and the criminal justice system. It helps people access the services they need and helps them navigate those systems all in a very empathetic and trauma-informed way,” Whiteside noted.
Acting Courtenay Mayor Wendy Morin said while an exact timeline for implementation hasn’t been finalized, a request for proposals will be going out right away, with the goal to have the PACTs running by late fall or early 2024 at the latest.
She explained many people within the community don’t have the tools to know what to do when they see citizens in their neighbourhoods in distress.
“This will give them kind of a mechanism to connect with PACT teams and help connect those teams to people in need. I think it gives the average citizen a tool that they haven’t had before because calling the police, as we know, is not always appropriate because oftentimes these are not criminal incidents in nature. These are real people who are dysregulated or have mental health or substance use crises and actually need some compassionate care and links to resources and services. So this is filling that gap.”
The team will be made up of peers with lived experience and mental-health professionals who will serve people aged 13 and above in the Comox Valley.
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