Stop the shooting: It is time for partnerships between police and mental health nurses

Developing Community Co-designed Scenario-Based Training for Police Mental Health Crisis Response: a Relational Policing Approach to De-escalation

“…The expansion of the police service role to include mental health crisis response can be attributed to a growing population of people with mental illness living in the community where mental health services and resources are woefully fragmented, underfunded, and difficult to access (Kesic et al 2013 ; Richmond and Gibbs 2020 ; Usher and Trueman 2015 ). Consequently, and often as a last resort, citizens turn to the police service for help given that these services are available around the clock.…”

“…A key recommendation urges police services to “collaborate with researchers […] to develop a system for collecting and analyzing standardized data regarding the effectiveness of training” (Iacobucci 2014 , p. 155). There are robust calls for mental health crisis education to include people with lived experience of mental illness themselves as well as family members, clinicians, mental health nurses and advocacy associations (Coleman and Cotton 2014 ; Iacobucci 2014 ; Usher and Trueman 2015 ). Taken together, transformative training advancements may be achieved through the gathering and collaboration of key community stakeholders involved in mental health crisis response, and building programs with the intention of evaluation at the forefront of design.…”

“…The issue of mental health crisis response is multi-faceted, far-reaching, and requires a co-operative effort to resolve – indeed, this concern is not just a “police problem”. As such, there is a clear need for enhanced involvement of community experts and stakeholders as partners in producing mental health crisis training in order to achieve a monumental shift in how the needs of people in crisis are addressed by a modern police service (Coleman and Cotton 2014 ; Usher and Trueman 2015 ).…”

Meeting the needs of young people with psychosis: We must do better

“…Also recently, the coroner handed down findings in relation to the death of 22‐year‐old Courtney Topic (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-30/courtney-topic-coroner-finds-death-could-have-been-avoided/10051152). This young woman was shot dead by police outside a takeaway restaurant in a major city in New South Wales because she had a knife in one hand and was demonstrating unusual behaviour; it was just another incident of a person with a mental illness being shot by member(s) of the police force (Usher & Trueman ). In handing down her report, Coroner Elizabeth Ryan commented that:…”