The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Grey Bruce saw consistent levels of calls for service over the holiday season.
Director of Client Services Scott McKay says for the last few years, the level of calls for the Mobile Mental Health and Addiction Response Team (MMHART) have not been overly affected by Christmas.
MMHART is a program with the CMHA which works with first responders including police and emergency services to provide on-site intervention and assessment for people having a mental health crisis, as well as ensure the appropriate resources are in place.
“We had 221 calls for crisis support in the month of December, which is actually pretty consistent with our monthly totals which tend to fluctuate between around 200 to 300 visits per month,” says McKay.
He says when looking at the pattern monthly and weekly, the holiday season does not play a major role in the calls for service.
“Things remain pretty consistent over the holiday which it doesn’t align anecdotally with what we would assume about the Christmas season, but that is what our numbers are telling us,” says McKay.
He adds the number of visits were higher this December compared to 2023, while still remaining consistent overall.
“Things do go up and down. I think we did start to see number go up over the past five years certainly since the pandemic, but they seem to have hit a mark now where we see pretty consistent numbers over the past few years,” says McKay.