A Crisis Intervention Team program in Pictou County is producing results.
New Glasgow Regional Police Department Chief Ryan Leil said the initiative began in 2020, after he was asked to take part in a virtual mental wellness round table and present from a police perspective. From a police lens, Leil said they were seeing a staggering increase in police calls for service involving mental health crisis.
From left: Cst. Donnie Wadden, NGRP School Resource Officer; Cst. Daniel Worth, NGRP Patrol Division; Chief Ryan Leil; Carly MacCuspic, Crisis Response & Urgent Care Services – Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Coordinator, Mental Health and Addictions, Nova Scotia Health; and Napolean, New Glasgow Regional Police Facility Support Dog. The group works together to support people in mental health crisis through the CIT program. (Aberdeen Health Foundation photo)
Kevin Fraser, a manager with Mental Health and Addictions, reached out to Leil to speak about a Crisis Intervention Team model, and from there the idea moved into an ad-hoc steering committee that developed its own CIT program which includes 40 hours of specific training to front-line police officers. Leil said they delivered the first series of training in 2021. Since then, over 50 per cent of the New Glasgow police service took part in the training which means they have a CIT trained officer on uniform patrol 24-hours a day. Leil also noted they partnered with other local police agencies in Stellarton and Westville, and the RCMP, including those in Cumberland and Colchester counties.
A release from the Aberdeen Health Foundation, states From December 2022 to May 2025, the New Glasgow Police Department made 101 CIT-supported calls, with five resulting in a trip to the emergency department. Over the same period, police responded to more than 1,900 mental health and well being-related calls, meaning less than 0.3 per cent resulted in hospital visits.
Pictou County is the first community in Nova Scotia outside of Halifax to implement CIT training. Leil said the model itself is a co-response model between police and Mental Health and Addictions, adding it strengthened the partnerships between those two bodies as well as local Emergency departments.