Image From Canadian Mental Health Association Southeast Region

By Adrian St.Onge

Community Assisted Response team seeking funding

Jun 21, 2023 | 2:49 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A pilot program that deploys mental health workers instead of police officers to low-risk calls for mental health and welfare checks provided an immediate impact since its inception in September.

With the one-year pilot coming to an end soon, the future of the Community Assisted Response team known as CARe is in jeopardy.

Funded by a one-time provincial grant of $451,000, nearly 800 low-risk calls were diverted from the city police in the first nine months alone.

Canadian Mental Health Association executive director Lyndon Grunewald says there is a clear link between diverted calls to CARe and the lower response numbers in the annual report released by Medicine Hat Police Service this week.

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Funding for the pilot project comes to an end Sept. 1, and Grunewald says securing further funding is required if CARe hopes to continue to relieve some of the burden and allow police to refocus their efforts.

“It allows the police service to focus on policing issues and what they’re trained and professionals in doing in our community,” Grunewald said. “There have been discussions here in downtown and other places in Alberta on safety of downtown areas, safety of residents on the streets, and they’re just able to focus on those things more because the calls that are specifically mental health related are handled through the CARe team.”

When the team was first launched, it was projected high call areas would be downtown and North River Flats. But Grunewald says more than 60 per cent of calls came from residential areas. Teams spent more than 590 total hours on scene responding to an average of three and a half calls per day.

Grunewald appeared before city council, which recently put $25 million into the police budget, on Monday night to request financial support. Councillors believe this is an initiative that needs funding, but should be a provincial responsibility.

“Where’s the Alberta government right now in assisting with this funding?” asked Coun. Andy McGrogan “Because I know it was on their radar during their election campaign.”

Coun. Darren Hirsch put forward a motion to use council resources to advocate for additional funding. “We have some recently-minted MLAs that would love to carry a flag for us and I think this might be one of them.”

Council did not approve the request for funding but instead voted unanimously to help CARe look for other options to find the funds needed. Grunewald says that the possibility of partial funding exists, but fulfilling the rest of the necessary budget would require community fundraising.