1. How do you call CRCL for help?
CRCL is publicly accessible through a local number. Contact numbers and hours can be found at CRCL.ca.
2. Who is CRCL for?
CRCL is a mobile, community-led crisis response team that provides support to people 13 years and older who are experiencing a mental health crisis.
If you recognize signs or symptoms of mental health crisis in yourself or others, you can call CRCL.
Crisis can look different for everyone. You might need to reach out for help because you are:
- Feeling grief, panic or anxiety
- Acting or feeling ways that are different or distressing
- Experiencing thoughts of self-harm
- Experiencing thoughts of suicide
- Concerned for the wellbeing of someone who could be experiencing a mental health crisis.
- If you are unsure if CRCL is the right service for you or someone you care about, please call us. If CRCL is not the right service to support your needs, CRCL will do their best to connect you with the appropriate service.
3. What happens when you call CRCL?
CRCL provides an urgent, consent based mental health response.
CRCL crisis responders work to reduce distress, provide safety and support until:
- the crisis is resolved
- a crisis care plan is developed
- referral to another service is accomplished
- or the person in crisis no longer consents to service
The types of services provided CRCL include
- Safety planning
- Facilitate acute crisis management
- Advocacy and systems access support
- Peer and person-centered support
- Referral to community, health and mental health services and other referrals as required (e.g., harm reduction supplies, emergency shelter etc.)
- 48-hour post-crisis intervention follow-up
4. Who responds to calls?
Trained CRCL dispatchers assess incoming calls.
If a mental health crisis is occurring, CRCL can dispatch a team of at least two crisis responders.
CRCL Crisis Responders may be peer support workers, licensed clinical social workers, paramedics, nurses, or other staff with expertise and professional experience supporting people in crisis.
In addition to the skills CRCL Crisis Responders bring to the job, they receive 100+ hours of instruction and training in trauma-informed crisis intervention and de-escalation.
5. What is the role of peers on CRCL teams?
A peer, in the context of the CRCL, is an employee who uses their lived and living expertise to support people in crisis. Lived expertise is gained from lived experience. A person with lived expertise of a mental health crisis understands the ways in which health, social, and justice systems traditionally respond to crises and are therefore well-positioned to provide the person-centered and empathetic care that is evidenced to improve outcomes for a person in crisis.
The inclusion of lived expertise within crisis care has been shown to improve the provision of trauma informed care and lead to outcomes such as reduced trauma and agitation, increased trust, reduced hospitalizations and emergency department use, and reduced recurrence of crisis.
6. Why has the name of these teams changed from Peer Assisted Care Teams (PACT) to CRCL?
A consistent brand identity creates a reliable and predictable experience for community members, building trust and making it easier for people to understand and access the services they need, when they need them most.
As the program has expanded not all teams were able to use the name PACT because of similarly named teams in their communities. Going forward all teams will be aligned under a common name.
7. How are CRCL teams funded?
CRCL is currently funded by the Provincial Government’s Ministry of Health.
The Province of BC has committed to funding 12 civilian-led teams to provide trauma informed, culturally safe support for people in crisis, including some that are Indigenous-led .
In 2022, the province committed $10 million to PACT (CRCL) for new and existing teams.
In budget 2024 PACT (CRCL) received a three-year funding commitment for new and existing teams.
8. Is it safe for CRCL to respond to mental health crisis without police?
In BC, police have become the default response to mental health crises, delivering services outside of the scope of their core duties and training.
This can result in an unnecessary interaction with the criminal justice system, the overuse of burdened emergency departments, and an inefficient, costly, and sometimes fatal crisis care system.
Community led crisis responders are a more appropriate response to a majority of mental health crisis care needs, where there is no imminent risk of harm. CRCL is one of over 220 examples of community-led, non-police, crisis responses, worldwide.
CRCL dispatchers assess risk and escalate to emergency services if required.
CRCL teams are trained in scene safety and situational awareness, prioritize safety within their response, and continually assess for risks, escalating to emergency services if required.
In the first two years of service delivery (2023 and 2024) CRCL crisis responders received over 8825 calls for help. 98.8% of these calls were responded to by CRCL crisis responders without the need for police intervention.
9. Are there plans to expand CRCL to more communities?
To date, the Province of BC has publicly committed to funding 10 CRCL teams administered by CMHA BC and 2 Indigenous-led crisis response teams.
Several municipalities have and continue to advocate for a CRCL team in their community.
10. I have a compliment, concern, or question about CRCL or a local CRCL team, how can I file it?
Please connect with us at CRCL@cmha.bc.ca