By Nigel Maxwell

P.A. MLA raises concerns about Mobile Crisis

Aug 24, 2016 | 3:26 PM

The daytime weekday hours for Prince Albert’s Mobile Crisis Unit were cut more than three months ago, and the MLA  for Prince Albert Northcote said she has been hearing some troubling concerns.

Nicole Rancourt told paNOW she heard people who work in different agencies in the city say they miss having the availability of the mobile crisis workers

“It’s made them have to work twice as hard and some community members have identified they are concerned they don’t have someone to call during the daytime if there is a crisis,” Rancourt said.

Rancourt who plans to raise the issue during the fall legislative session, said she is also worried if people are waiting until 4:30 p.m. to talk to an operator, which will increase the workload of night staff.

“We all know Prince Albert has a lot of social issues that (the) mobile crisis was really good at responding to and we know if we have trained crisis workers responding to traumatic events the long term costs become a lot less because people are dealing with the trauma right then,” she said.

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Vicki Bird, executive director at the Mobile Crisis Unit, said the decision to cut the daytime hours in June was linked to becoming more focused.

“We always did stuff through the day which assisted lots of people in the community but it wasn’t necessarily around any of the funding,” Bird said.

When asked to comment on Rancourt’s concerns, Bird said she heard similar thoughts.

“We have lots of people that relied on our service and are struggling to find support else where,” she said 

The Mobile Crisis line is meant to connect people in crisis to ongoing services. In other words, the mobile crisis centre does not act as the final solution for anyone. 

Bird said the voice mail message is very clear and provides people with the phone numbers of crisis-related agencies such as mental health or child protection services.  That being said if someone in crisis does call, they won’t be ignored.

“We are doing some things regardless of whether we are funded for them or not because you don’t just shut the door or hang up the phone with someone who is in crisis,” Bird said.

Bird said she is open to reviewing their policies and will consider looking at their operating hours.

During weekdays, a crisis worker will answer the phone between the hours of 4:30 p.m. and 8 a.m.

On weekends and statutory holidays, the mobile crisis line is staffed 24 hours.

nmaxwell@panow.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell