The deputy chief of the Sarnia Police Service [SPS] says the community's mental health and the murder of Canadian police officers in the past year has taken a psychological toll on their members.
In an interview with Sarnia News Today, Julie Craddock said it's "something that we're very aware of" and they've been rewriting or creating policies on organizational wellness, psychological wellness checks and critical incident stress to help.
"The view of the chief, and I as well, is that member wellness can come in many different forms," Craddock said. "Some of that is making sure that our members have proper training, that they're equipped to do the jobs that they're asked to do, which happen to be in many circumstances very dangerous and complex."
In an operational update presented to the Sarnia Police Services Board June 22, Craddock provided a snapshot of mental health related calls the service has responded to.
From January 1, 2023 to June 1, 2023, officers responded to 224 mental health act calls, a 33 per cent increase year-to-date.
"It's important to note that there's many people in the community that live with mental health [issues] day-to-day, it's managed and it doesn't require a police response," Craddock said. "So, these are just mental health calls where police have actually been called into a situation where mental health is the underlying factor."
Craddock said SPS investigated 187 calls regarding suicidal individuals in the first five months of 2023, a 115 per cent increase year-to-date.
"The response is because somebody has either made an attempt to take their own lives, they have suicidal ideations, so they're thinking about it, and it's elevated from some of the other mental health calls that we go to," she said.
Craddock said the increases are partially due to a change in how the stats are reported, an effort to reduce the sigma attributed to mental health calls and increased visibility of the Mental Health Engagement Response Team [MHEART].
"We're trying to look at underlying risk factors," said Craddock. "So, if we go to an intimate partner violence call, or we go to a family violence call, or we go to a theft... what we're trying to look at is are there underlying mental health considerations and is that why we're actually being called into that place, or that home, or that business in the first place."
She also noted there were 672 person welfare checks, down seven per cent year-to-date, and eight vulnerable person checks, representing a zero per cent change. Craddock said member wellness is a shared responsibility at SPS.
"Police are exposed to more trauma than many other professions," she said. "Supervisors, managers, all the way from your peer group to the chief of police, look for warning signs when it comes to the wellness of our members. Including, things like the signs of suicide."
Craddock said referrals can be made to services or, in some circumstances, a psychological wellness check may be needed to support the officers.
