Getting Mental Health Crisis Support in Nova Scotia

Call (902) 429-8167 or 1-888-429-8167 (toll free)

The Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team (MHMCT) provides intervention and short term crisis management for children, youth and adults experiencing a mental health crisis. They offer 24/7 telephone intervention throughout Nova Scotia - (902) 429-8167 or 1-888-429-8167 (toll free) - and mobile response (1:00 pm to 1:00 am) in most communities in Halifax Regional Municipality.




Note that this video is four years old and it does not mention the 24/7 telephone crisis intervention service that is now available throughout Nova Scotia.

From this document:

Mental Health Crisis vs. Psychiatric Emergency

A mental health crisis is:

1. an acute disturbance of thinking, mood, behaviour or social relationship that requires an immediate intervention;
2. which involves an element of unpredictability, usually accompanied by a lack of response to social controls; and
3. which may be defined as a crisis by the client, the family or other members of the community.*

Thoughts of suicide, distorted or psychotic thinking, intense anxiety, depression, unable to cope.

A mental health crisis does not necessarily require hospital-based assessment/triage services and can be effectively supported in the community by a team of service providers.

A psychiatric emergency is when a person is an immediate danger to him/herself due to compromised thinking and/or judgement. A psychiatric emergency requires hospital-based treatment services – Call 911 or attend a local emergency department.

* Consistent with B.C.’s Mental Health Reform Crisis Response / Emergency Services

Also see:

Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team

Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team - Overview Document (2007)

Video focuses on mental health (2013)

N.S. mental health supports reach rural areas (2013)

Meet Halifax's mental health mobile crisis team (2012)

Meet Halifax's Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team

An article posted on January 27th by CBC.ca:

Halifax's Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team is shrouded in secrecy.

They don't wear uniforms, they don't travel in marked vehicles and they keep the location of their headquarters a secret, to ensure the safety of the people working there.

Mary Pyche (pictured, centre), the program leader for crisis emergency services for the Capital District Health Authority, said the idea for a crisis team first started taking shape back in 2003.

"We started putting that proposal together to the department of health. Took a little while," she said.

"By 2006, we had the partnership up and running. We also included in the partnership the IWK as well, so that the service would offer crisis response in the community right across the age spectrum."

In a recent interview with CBC News, Pyche said the team handles about 1,000 cases a month. That's based on 300 to 350 people each making multiple calls for help to the team.

Pyche said 95 per cent of those calls are new — first-time callers or people who haven't called the crisis line for at least two months. That turnover is proof the team is successful, she said.

Mary-Beth Flory (pictured, right), a registered nurse and the clinical practice leader for the crisis team, spends her mornings preparing for when the team hits the road in the afternoon and evenings.

"Come 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the team sits down," Flory said.

"That's three clinicians and our two officers who are on for those hours. And we triage again where we're going to be going throughout the day — where we need to go first, what kind of supports do we believe the team is going to be needing to provide."

Halifax Regional Police support

Four members of Halifax Regional Police are assigned to the team. They work in plain clothes.

Const. Angela Balcolm (pictured, left), one of those officers, said a uniform wouldn't work in her job.

"We try to make people as comfortable as we can and of course, decriminalize mental illness," she said.

"We're there for the person's safety, not to look into any criminal matters."

Balcolm said officers operate under a memorandum of understanding, so they don't share what they hear on the crisis team with other police officers.

Pyche said the police officers give the team extra power.

"We knew if we could partner with police, that they had the authority to do wellness checks and we could go along with them," she said.

That police presence allows the team to respond when friends or family members warn about a person's deteriorating mental condition.

Not all 'lights and sirens'

Mary-Beth Flory said the team doesn't require family intervention to act.

"A person can refer themselves," Flory said.

"It's very easy access. It can simply be a phone call. A person does not need a referral from a physician or from a psychologist to access support, and that it is a wide range of intervention and services that can be provided."

For Angela Balcolm, working with the crisis team offers a different facet to police work.

"People watch TV and they see all the shows like Cops and all that," she said.

"Is that a reality in our work? Absolutely. Sometimes."

Balcolm said her work isn't all "lights and sirens."

"I think it's huge to see this program that is assisting people because the police role in this is huge — getting people, detaining people and taking individuals into hospital, if that's what needs to happen," she said.

Photograph by Blair Rhodes / CBC


Also see:

Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team

Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team (PDF)

Emergency Crisis Services - Mental Health Services - Cape Breton District Health Authority - Call (902) 567-7767

Hyde fatality inquiry to be webcast

An article posted today on CBCnews.ca:

The inquiry into the death of Howard Hyde [pictured], the Dartmouth man who died in a Nova Scotia jail 30 hours after he was shocked with a Taser, will be broadcast live on the internet.

It will be the first time a fatality inquiry in Nova Scotia will be visible to people outside the hearing room.

Lawyers agreed to the webcast on Tuesday.

Kevin MacDonald, who represents Hyde's sister, said it would give Hyde's father a chance to follow the proceedings from his home in the U.S., and also provide Nova Scotians with a front-row seat.

"The public are interested," said MacDonald. "The inquiry's going to be held in Halifax. But for the webcast it really would be closed off to many members of the public, even in rural Nova Scotia."

Halifax Regional Police used a Taser to subdue Hyde, 45, after responding to a domestic abuse complaint on Nov. 21, 2007. He was taken to the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth, where he died 30 hours later after struggling twice with corrections officers.

Last fall, Nova Scotia's chief medical examiner ruled that Hyde died of excited delirium due to paranoid schizophrenia, and declared his death accidental.

MacDonald said Hyde's relatives have many questions.

"The family wants to know what those people did and why they did it, or why they didn't do what they didn't do?" said MacDonald.

There are also issues about mental-health crisis intervention, said Blair Mitchell, the lawyer acting for the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia.

"Everyone's concerned about the Taser. Everyone is concerned about the use of force and the use of restraint, particularly in the case of a person in a situation of distress," said Mitchell.

Lawyers and court officials will meet again in June to discuss procedural issues, though Judge Anne Derrick won't hear from witnesses until early July.

Derrick can make recommendations relating to any matter that arises during the inquiry.

Also see:

From CBC News: Nova Scotia at Six:

In the fall of 2007, Howard Hyde died 30 hours after he was tasered by Halifax police. Now an inquiry into his death is about to begin. Jim Nunn speaks with Dan MacRury, the lawyer for the inquiry. (To view, please click here; runs 3:14, requires RealPlayer.)

Hyde inquiry online

Inquiry into death of man Tasered in police custody to be streamed on web