Here's a must-read about a police department in the small Canadian town of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, pop. 35,000, that was dealing with 35,000 calls a year, which was double the number in 2001. The calls were on track to double again in eight years, until the department instituted what they call Community Mobilization, a concept they borrowed from police in Glasgow, Scotland.
This is an excerpt from the excellent story by Winnipeg Free Press reporter Randy Turner. There's no mention of this police department using trauma-informed practices. But that's what it is. Ā
Seated around the table are representatives from every policing and social-services agency in the city: addictions, municipal police and RCMP, mental health, child services, probation, education. The works.
The analyst cites the first "case" -- a 13-year-old girl recently reported missing by a guardian and found intoxicated by patrol officers. The girl was returned to her home. She had been truant and recently adopted a "poor attitude." An investigation revealed the teenager had been a victim of abuse at the hands of a stepfather who had recently moved into the home.
"Are we at acutely elevated risk?" Hunter asks the people at the table. (Asked later for a layman's version of elevated risk, Hunter replied: "Bad shit is going to happen.")
They all agree: "Yes."
So begins the work of the Hub, a cross-section of social-services and enforcement professionals who have been meeting twice a week for just over two years. They have addressed more than 600 "discussions" in an attempt to identify at-risk individuals in their community based on data supplied by agencies or analysts.
It might sound like common sense, but it's cutting-edge. Historically, agencies such as Child and Family Services, mental health or police operate in silos. Too often, they have no clue about the entire story of at-risk clients. If they want advice or information from another agency, it can literally take weeks or months.
At the boardroom table in Prince Albert, that process takes seconds or minutes. At each meeting, about a dozen pending cases are dealt with, then a half dozen new files are considered. In all cases, the response time, which includes social services and enforcement literally knocking on the person of interest's door to offer assistance, takes less than 24 hours.
"Historically, that never happened," Kalinowski said. "In a lot of cases, you investigate a homicide, you get your bad guy, there's no surprise to see that criminal record a mile long, right? That same bad guy also has a long list with schools and truancy. He dropped out, had addictions issues. Social services was involved. And on and on. Those connections were never made earlier on, but the warning signs were all there."
In the case of the 13-year-old girl, police officers and social workers intervened by talking to the teenager and mother. The stepfather was subsequently arrested and removed from the home. The young girl started going to school. So did the mother. No further incidents have been reported.
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