Mental health training in the works for OPS call centre

The Ottawa Police Service says it's preparing to roll out training in early 2025 for emergency call takers to help them "deal better" with calls that involve mental health.

Training expected to roll out in early 2025, inquest on 2016 death hears

Guy Quenneville · CBC News · Posted: Nov 29, 2024 11:23 AM EST | Last Updated: November 29

The death of Abdirahman Abdi — and the questions that remain

13 days ago

5:16

WARNING: This video contains graphic content | Eight years after Abdirahman Abdi died following a violent struggle with Ottawa police, a coroner’s inquest is bringing the event back into the spotlight. Here’s what you need to know.

The Abdirahman Abdi inquest is being livestreamed during the day here.

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) says it's preparing to roll out training in early 2025 for emergency call takers to help them "deal better" with calls that involve mental health.

Eric Janus, the operations manager of the police service's communications centre, offered the update on Thursday, the ninth day of an ongoing coroner's inquest into the death of Abdirahman Abdi. He was a Somali-Canadian struggling with mental illness who died in 2016 after a violent altercation with police officers.

Whether the minutes leading to Abdi's arrest offered opportunities for de-escalation emerged as one of the central tensions of the inquest's first week and a half of testimony, which was largely focused on the events leading to his arrest.

But because the fact-finding process is ultimately meant to empower five jurors to recommend ways to prevent deaths like Abdi's, inquest lawyers are also canvassing a number of expert opinions.

Abdirahman Abdi composite photos — Abdi, 38, was experiencing some stressors in the first half of 2016, including a recent divorce and his fear he would be deported, the inquest has heard. (Abdi family)

'A better understanding of the issues'

The police force's communications centres takes 911 calls. Its staff also takes information from those calls and relays it to the officers who respond to the calls.

The new eight-hour training will be offered to all of the approximately 120 people who work at the centre, Janus said.

Carleton University's Police Research Lab is working with OPS on the curriculum.

"The purpose is to be able to provide them with a better understanding of the issues that some of the callers might be experiencing, as well as being able to provide them with tools to better communicate with such callers," Janus said.

"They will not be providing any mental health expertise to callers or to the officers," he later clarified.

Catch up on the Abdi inquest — and see where it's headed next

One thing Abdi's last psychiatrist says he could have done differently

Call centre staff currently receive suicide intervention training and ad-hoc presentations from members of OPS's mental health unit.

Beyond that, nothing further is currently available or offered when it comes to specific mental health training, Janus said.

On Friday, the Abdi inquest is hearing from staff at the Ottawa Guiding Council for Mental Health and Addictions, which is focused on alternatives to police when responding to people in crisis.

On Thursday, the inquest heard council staff recommended OPS embed two mental health workers at the call centre. The police force opted instead for the training mentioned by Janus on the advice of a consultant.

Under questioning by OPS's inquest lawyer, Janus agreed the average time of a high-priority call, which is very brief, doesn't allow enough time for a mental health worker to adequately communicate with a caller.

It would be challenging to provide 24/7 access to mental health workers, Janus added.