NANAIMO — Capacity is expanding for a groundbreaking mental health program through the local RCMP detachment.
Cst. Ben Caram will officially start his new job as a Mental Health Liaison Officer on Tuesday, June 2, adding a second officer to the program, unofficially called ‘Car 54’, and expanding service from four days per week to seven.
Already a member of the Island District negotiator team with the RCMP, Caram said his time on patrol throughout the city has allowed him to build a foster relationships with a wide array of people.
“I always like the expression, ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,’ so if you have a very good interaction with someone, you’re able to show empathy, maybe connect them to services, because you know you will likely deal with that person again and again, if you have a good interaction with them, it definitely has an impact on the next interaction and pays dividends going down the road.”
The program sees specially trained RCMP officers team up with nurses from Island Health to attend to calls involving mental health challenges, as well as doing check-ins with people identified by general duty officers.
Caram said he expects the skills gained as a negotiator in recent years will serve him well in this new role.
He told NanaimoNewsNOW both positions rely more on listening than knowing exactly what to say in any given situation.
Caram believes ongoing discussions regarding mental health have helped draw the issue out and more into public conversation, reducing stigma and helping interactions with those in crisis.
“It’s not a fear-based thing anymore. If someone has something going on in their mental health, or their history, or maybe a traumatic background, I find there’s more willingness to talk about that. As police officers, it’s very important that we gain the education and fluidity with these topics and are able to talk about them and interact with people appropriately.”
Cst. Josh Waltman has worked in the program since November 2020, responding to thousands of calls since. (Image Credit: File photo/NanaimoNewsNOW)
Caram joins Cst. Joshua Waltman, who has led the Mental Health Liaison Officer program since late 2020.
Waltman said the addition of full coverage through the week means faster response to more files.
“We triage our files based off acuity, and we always go to the most acute file first, and then we filter down from there. This will allow us to get more files done with the two of us, do pass ons, and then we don’t have to push files over until the next week, because we’re always going to have somebody on.”
Throughout almost six years in the role, Waltman said the number of people he’s seen repeatedly is extremely small.
But the position has taken him to almost every corner of the city.
“There’s no limit to who we will see. One day we could be downtown on one knee, talking to someone from the unsheltered population, and the next day we could be in a nice area of south Nanaimo or north Nanaimo, in the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen, talking to somebody who’s having a rough day. Mental health does not discriminate.”
The Mental Health Liaison Officer program has since been replicated through RCMP detachments in the West Shore and via a pilot program in the Comox Valley.
Waltman said Campbell River and Duncan are at various stages of launching their own programs in the coming months, while the independent Victoria Police Department has operated a liaison officer program, which began several years prior to Nanaimo.
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