MATTER MIND OVER A partnership between mental health services and Victoria Police’s Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) negotiators is seeing dangerous situations successfully resolved faster.
Every day Victoria Police’s negotiators are faced with people in their worst state of mind. Whether a person is threatening to hurt themselves or someone else, it is the calm, friendly nature of the negotiator, and on the odd occasion a promise of cigarettes, that resolves the situation. One year since a partnership was established between police and NorthWestern Mental Health (NWMH), the negotiators have been able to successfully resolve critical incidents faster by gaining immediate state-wide access to mental health records 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. CIRT’s Senior Sergeant Darren McQueen said the partnership meant NWMH clinicians were available to share important health details of offenders in stand-offs with police. “We get direct advice from mental health clinicians who can tell us what to expect in the person’s behaviour, if they’re taking medication and what reaction we might expect if the person is taking drugs or alcohol,” he said. The Security Services Division’s Acting Superintendent Glenn Owen advocated for the information sharing to start.
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POLICE LIFE | SUMMER 2017
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“This outcome could not have been achieved without support and leadership from NWMH and the Department of Health and Human Services,” he said. “We had to work through privacy issues and the secure management of health information, which had been a barrier to this concept previously. “Once it was understood by all that police needed access to mental health information for the safety of people who were suffering a crisis and not for evidentiary purposes, a change to the policies and processes naturally followed.” Before the agreement came into place, a siege in Parkdale in 2013 saw police faced with a man they knew nothing about and a police officer injured by a petrol bomb. “If we had access to his records at the time we would have known his mental health history and diagnosis, even his personal life circumstances,” Sen Sgt McQueen said. “It allows us to pre-empt what the person might do next, what might upset them further and how we can help them.” CIRT Negotiator Leading Senior Constable Shane Engelsman said making contact with NWMH is the first thing he does on the way to a siege.