The Met and mental health - (if you need help just call 999)
tw: i talk about mental health in this including crisis intervention, and other not v nice things
I never thought I’d write in support of the Met, but I thought it was interesting when they said they’d no longer respond to mental health calls.
(I realise this is two months out of date, but you know when you write something - then are nervous of posting it (I don’t wish for “Met supporter” to be google-able beside my name), so just put it off? Plus I’m still processing Rick Astley and Blossoms.)
As an institutionally racist organisation, the Met is the last bit of state apparatus that should be responding to mental health calls. We know that their actions consistently lead to the deaths of black men. The power they exert, allows them to be revisionist as they deliver their well-rehearsed excuses for tasering men in distress, while it also seems tasering someone is seen as a tactic, in trying to get someone to not jump from a building.
I hate to admit it, but I’ve actually been party to situations where they’ve been kind. But I’m not sure this is anything to do with the Met’s systems - but rather the odd parachuting role they play in our communities.
The old safeguarding…
I got five missed calls on my phone recently. I was on a run, so I ignored them all but it got rather annoying. Not just because it interrupted the music but because I guessed who it was, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to help.
It wasn’t a saved number, so I kept declining it, (and besides, my role is not crisis response). I returned the call upon my return, knowing that the person who answered would be either a mental health worker (5%) or a police officer (95%).
It was a police officer. We spoke for five minutes and have not spoken since. She’d received a number for me from someone in mental health services, who was currently unreachable - which was causing the officer to worry. Unlike many services, we don’t divulge information unless there is a severe safeguarding risk (I’ve tried to boycott the term “safeguarding” as it’s lost any meaning - but you know what I mean). I told the officer, that the person she was worried about, was in my view, “ok” but I said I’d double check and report back. During the phone call the police officer actually had a phonecall from the person in question and ended the call. I got a text a few mins later to say “all good, I spoke to them.”
In this weird world of public services, I do sometimes think the police have more freedom and ability to be present. (Sure it’s because they’re the first to rock up to an “incident”, and it’s often about protecting their PR public rather than showing care or compassion to people in difficulty.)
For many of the people we work with in North London, they know that dialling 999 will get them a quicker response. Sometimes an even kinder response (with white people). I wonder if it’s less about the Met, and more about what we expect frontline staff to do.
I hear the same from A&E nurses. Again, like the police, “fixing mental health” is not in their job description. They’re often left with discharging people who have made recent attempts to end their life; right back to the street - but before all that, they get some time with them; to chat, to decompress. And at least the person has a bed, is fed and watered before being sent back to dysfunctional homelessness hostels / the streets.
I wonder if it’s because A&E nurses are not specifically mental health “professionals”.
I’ve met some amazing mental health professionals, but I’ve also met many that don’t get any time to just sit, and “be” with the people they are trying to support. Too many forms, too many assessments, too few pathways or referral options. And besides, is a frontline mental health worker even doing their job if they don’t give you a leaflet, or referral letter urging you to “talk to someone”? (lol)
It’s easy for some of the country’s biggest mental health charities to get on their soapboxes and scream “Tory austerity”; calling on the police of all people to do frontline mental health work. I’m not sure why these charities want an institutionally racist organisation to do menty h, but I’ll leave that to them to create a fancy toolkit on it.
Perhaps certain charities should look a bit closer to home. I mean they claim they are all “community-based”, but too few of their staff leave their computer screens. And what exactly is their obsession with group and “peer” mental health support? Why do they assume women who have experienced bereavement are obsessed with knitting? Why do they love taking people’s email before they attend a “mental wellbeing” session, yet when they leave early (because you’ve triggered them with your rude and impertinent questioning) - you don’t ask them why they’ve left?
One tactic I’ve seen mental health charities deploy, is also bumping you off a waiting list for a service due to a “lack of engagement”. The way in which people (particularly black women - funny that), have to keep proving “engagement” is infuriating.
And we wonder why people “disengage” after being told for the zillionth time to “call samaritans” or “go see your GP”?
Of course part of all this comes down to arbitrary outcomes and targets, set up by the “public service reform” we know as “New Public Management”. This odd culture continues to be the order of the day, set by out-of-touch commissioners, Whitehall bureaucrats and even more out-of-touch cabinet members.
But… it’s good to talk
But none of this matters, because it’s “good to talk”. And it’s your job to do so, to solve your mental health issues. Don’t keep it to yourself, talk to someone!
Oh but you don’t have someone who’s willing to listen? Ok, well just go out on the street then and start shouting at random people about your fears and anxieties - someone might listen. (Perhaps avoid doing this if you’re black.)
Of course, you don’t have to be shouting to get into trouble with the Met. Just ask the police officer I saw in Muswell Hill the other week, who stopped and shamed someone who was simply sitting down on the street. When I asked the man “do you need any help”, the police officer replied for him; “if he needs help he can dial 999”.
It’s good to know even the Met have maintained a sense of humour.
(I will never not be fascinated by how sensitive the police are; you can’t even ask someone they’re trying to book, if they are “ok”.)