Science Behind the Research
Stastistics About
Mental Health Awareness Training
This training program stems from a program that was originally developed at the University of Alberta, Department of Psychiatry, to advance the mental health training of police officers in the Edmonton Police Service.
This program proved overwhelmingly successful, showing increases in police mental health awareness, communication, de-escalation and empathy skills.
The benefits for this program have been supported by various articles and publications, including the recent report from the Mental Health Commission of Canada (Coleman and Cotton 2014), and an independent review by Dr. Richard Frierson, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of South Carolina (Frierson 2013)
23% increase
In self-reported police officer confidence when dealing with mental health calls 6 months after training, with a continued increase to 32%.41% increase
In police officer Mental Health Awareness shown through an increase in number of mental health calls41% decrease
Overall in use of physical force and 26% decrease in use of weapon force in all police calls.10% increase
In sergeants ratings of officers on Verbal Communication, De-escalation and Empathy measures before and after training19% increase
In efficiency shown through a decrease in time needed to find solutions to mental health calls5.2% decrease
In use of force in mental health calls specificallyDownloadable Research Papers
