FAQ
1. What is the Reach Out Response Network?
The Reach Out Response Network is a coalition of community stakeholders dedicated to advocating for and creating transformational change in Toronto's mental health crisis services. We are partnering with the City of Toronto to support the city in developing a framework for a non-police mental health emergency service. We envision that this team will be accessible both through 911 and (we hope) its own easy to recall number such as 811. Our teams will be staffed by mental health clinicians and peer support workers from the communities they serve. They will be available across the city 24/7, with rapid response times equivalent to the response times of police, fire, and ambulance. Our civilian-led teams will replace police response to most mental health crises.
We aim to develop teams that will truly revolutionize crisis response and lead the way in a paradigm shift away from coercive, forceful, police-led intervention towards an anti-oppressive, recovery-oriented, trauma-informed model that will empower individuals in crisis and promote their dignity, autonomy, self-determination, and resilience. Our teams will be created by and for the communities they aim to serve.
2. What is the Reach Out Response Network doing?
The Reach Out Response Network is conducting a number of town halls in order to solicit community input in the design of our proposed teams. We are also conducting key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders, doing outreach and a survey with the homeless population, conducting research on international and local mobile crisis models and service gaps, and developing our infrastructure, including our social media pages and website.
3. What local and international models are you basing your teams on?
Our proposed Reach Out Response Teams are primarily based on the CAHOOTS teams that have been operating for over thirty years in Eugene, Oregon. CAHOOTS pairs a medic with a mental health crisis worker to respond to mental health-related 911 calls, as well as calls involving the homeless and other vulnerable populations. In 2019, CAHOOTS responded to 20% of all 911 calls across Eugene, approximately 24 000 calls.
One key difference between our team and CAHOOTS is that we intend to integrate people with lived experience (peer support workers) as frontline workers on our teams. We are basing this aspect of our model on successful programs such as the Gerstein Centre, which incorporates people with lived experience into all aspects of its operations, including frontline crisis support.
We are also well-connected with civilian-led mobile crisis teams in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Austin, the Bay Area, Denver, Hamilton, Houston, New York City, Oakland, Olympia, Portland, Stockholm, Vancouver, and Waterloo-Wellington.
4. What about existing crisis response services?
The Reach Out Response Network recognizes the amazing work that services like the Gerstein Centre, CMHA, Anishnawbe Health, and many others have been doing in Toronto. Our service is not intended to marginalize, replicate, or replace existing services, but is instead intended to complement these services and bridge existing gaps. The Reach Out Response Network is collaborating closely with a large number of mental health and addictions services in order to realize our shared goal of improving and de-stigmatizing crisis response for all Torontonians.
5. How will your frontline workers be protected from injuries and potential violence?
The Reach Out Response Network has commissioned a survey of civilian-led mobile crisis teams across Canada and the United States. We’ve found that no mobile crisis team has ever had a serious injury or death of a frontline worker, service user, or third party. Minor injuries, such as the team’s car being rear-ended in traffic or a client spitting on a staff member, occur in approximately 1 in every 21,450 calls. To learn more about our research on risk of violence, click here.
Our teams will carry police radios so they are able to call for immediate backup if needed, and they will not attend calls where guns or other dangerous weapons are involved, or where a person is behaving in an assaultive manner.
6. How can a team like CAHOOTS be scaled to a large city like Toronto?
Other large cities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston are currently developing CAHOOTS-style teams. Toronto will learn from their example and their evaluations and implementation plans. We will also begin with a pilot program in a much smaller area, likely in three different parts of the city.
7. What is the timeline of your project?
City Council has voted to prepare an implementation plan, which will be completed by the end of December and presented to City Council in January 2021. We hope to launch a pilot in three areas of Toronto by January 2022.
8. How much will your teams cost to run?
Houston, with a population of 2.4 million people, estimates that their mental health emergency service will require funding of $18 million USD in order to respond to 20% of all 911 calls across the city. New York City, with a population of 8.4 million, estimates that their pilot will require $3.3 million USD in funding. Our proposed teams will likely cost a similar amount.
CAHOOTS costs $2.1 million USD per year to operate, and in 2019, it effectively saved the city in $8.5 million in public safety funding and $14 million in hospital diversions. CAHOOTS thereby saved the city 11x its cost. We expect the costs savings ratio would be similar in Toronto.
9. What upcoming town halls is the Reach Out Response Network holding?
Check out upcoming town halls on our events page.
10. How can I get involved?
If you’d like to get involved, please come to one of our town halls (registration forms listed above). You can also volunteer with us and share information about our work with your friends, family, and networks.
If you’re able, you can also donate to our GoFundMe campaign. These funds are used for our ongoing costs, such as for website hosting, and Mail Chimp, and to provide honoraria to our Black, Indigenous, and service user advisory panels.
You can also help us out by spreading the word about the work we’re doing!
11. How can I get in touch?
You can contact us at hello@reachouttoronto.ca! We look forward to hearing from you.
