Toronto’s fourth emergency service will soon be sending crisis support specialists to respond to mental health crises across the entire city.
Starting Thursday, trained mobile teams from the 24/7 º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøCommunity Crisis Service (TCCS) will respond to calls from across the city, whether to or when appropriate 911 calls are diverted, as an alternative to a police response in addressing addiction or mental health crises for those 16 and older.
°Õ³ó±ðÌý, which began as a pilot in March 2022, had been operating in just over half of º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøwith the majority of this year spent hiring and training 100 new team members, including frontline crisis responders, case managers and outreach workers.
Last fall, council unanimously voted to make the pilot a free permanent service and eventually expand it citywide.
“There will be at any given time 12 mobile teams,” each with two crisis workers, said Mohamed Shuriye, the city’s director of community safety and well-being.
While deemed as the city’s fourth emergency service, Shuriye noted that response time targets won’t be equal to the types of emergencies that fire, police and paramedics handle. Workers will be aiming for an average of 25 minutes, he said, reflecting what the initiative saw in its pilot phase.
Teams of trained mental health workers respond each day to crises across the city — here’s what it looks like
Teams of trained mental health workers respond each day to crises across the city — here’s what it looks like
“What’s really unique about Toronto’s is the way it has made such an effort to accommodate the most marginalized families and people most affected by police use of force,” said Jennifer Chambers, executive director of The Empowerment Council, a mental health advocacy organization.
The Canadian Mental Health Association º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍø North º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøand North Etobicoke, with help from local Black-led organizations. The Gerstein Crisis Centre will cover Central º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøand South Etobicoke meanwhile the TAIBU Community Health Centre will cover Scarborough, both with supporting them. Indigenous-led teams will cover the whole city.
Khalil Dorival, a frontline crisis worker, said he has experience with social anxiety and depression, so “I realized that my story could be someone else’s survival guide and my life lessons could be someone else’s lifeline.”
For Chambers, the expansion’s success will depend on several factors, including integrating a range of people with lived experiences into the crisis teams and people calling 211 who themselves are experiencing a crisis rather than other people.
Another benchmark will be “people not constantly cycling through the system,” she said. “Because the teams should connect them with they need.”
While a small percentage of responses during the pilot needed another emergency service, such as police to assist when there’s a weapon involved, Shuriye said each team has been training with police divisions for the last two years to define their roles and how to work together effectively.
“This is something new,” Shuriye said. “It’s going to take some time to build. But I think we will get to that time where there is trust and confidence, not just from police, but communities that the right calls are being sent to the right responder.”
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