The province is boosting mental health supports for police and their families as part of its 2021 budget.
On Tuesday, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones announced a $12.5-million investment over three years to strengthen the Ontario Provincial Police’s Healthy Workplace program.
Jones noted the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened mental health issues for many.
“No sector has been free of these challenges, and the frontline workers who support essential services in our justice system face particularly complex circumstances,” she said.
“They often experience incidents that none of us will have to face.”
The $12.5 million will fund about 20 additional mental health support staff and other resources, and those services will be available to uniform, civilian and retired OPP members as well as their families.
“We’ve said it thousands of times and it deserves to be said thousands more: Mental health is health. It is so important that we are taking care of our mental health and get supports if we are struggling,” said Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop.
“I’ve seen first-hand how the job can have an impact mentally and it is critical that we work to ensure help is there when it is needed.”
It is always needed, said Rob Stinson, president and CEO of the Ontario Provincial Police Association.
Since 1989, he noted, 38 members of the OPP have died by suicide. Thirty-seven were uniformed members and one was a civilian member. They included both active and retired employees.
“Our members are strong and resilient. They are exposed to traumatic events on a daily basis, whether they are frontline police officers, dispatchers, call takers or support staff,” Stinson said. “The more we can be proactive and match clinicians that are good for our individual members in a timely manner in the areas they are working in, the more chance we have of our members being able to process their trauma and remain healthy.”
While the Healthy Workplace program is managed by the OPP, its members aren’t the only ones who have access to it. The resources are also available to members of Indigenous and municipal police services.
“Embedded within the program is the ability for an Indigenous or a small municipal force to reach out and connect with OPP and allow their members and staff to have the same access,” Jones explained.
In July and August 2019, OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique travelled the province to discuss the findings of the force’s mental health reviews and get feedback from OPP members and their families.
That resulted in OPP’s Healthy Workplace program and an action plan for 2021-22, which works to address the issues he heard about on the road and includes recommendations to ensure a healthy workplace environment.
“This funding and support from the province will ensure the OPP has sufficient resources to continue to complete and maintain the implementation of the recommendations …” he said.
Tuesday’s announcement builds on the province’s commitment from last summer to hire 200 additional frontline officers. It is not known how many officers are being deployed to specific regions, but Carrique said the force has been assigning recruit classes of anywhere from 106 to 135 constables since August based on “operational priorities — where is the critical need for the officers in the points in time that they are available to be assigned to a detachment and deployed into communities.”
“We’re starting to see a significant improvement in officer coverage as a result of the investments of the provincial government,” he said.
