The Integrated Mobile Police Assessment Crisis Team (IMPACT), which launched on Jan. 4, will feature a police officer paired with a crisis worker based at the police station to respond to mental health calls for service to police for 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
The joint mobile crisis response team, which has been in place for nearly three years, has workers sent from the mental health association's headquarters to join police officers at the scene of calls. That two-person team will continue to operate.
Jennifer Hyslop, the chief executive officer of the Canadian Mental Health branch in Thunder Bay, described the IMPACT project as the next logical step for the partnership.