Police-Encounters-With-People-In-Crisis

B. Workplace mental health standard
10. In 2013, the Mental Health Commission of Canada and three Canadian standards
organizations published a national workplace mental health standard known as the
“National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace -
Prevention, Promotion and Guidance to Staged Implementation” (the Standard). 9
11. The Standard aims to help organizations create psychologically healthy and safe
workplaces by preventing harm to employee psychological health and promoting
psychological well-being. As noted in the Standard, psychological health and safety “is
embedded in the way people interact with one another on a daily basis, is part of the way
working conditions and management practices are structured, and the way decisions are
made and communicated.” 10
12. The Standard emphasizes that every organization should establish, document,
implement and maintain a psychological health and safety management system to which
senior management and employees must commit. This system should be confidential
and respectful of privacy rights. The organization should establish psychological health
and safety objectives for relevant job functions and measure progress in achieving those
targets. 11
13. While the TPS does have a multi-faceted Wellness Program that deals with a
variety of health issues for members (including nutrition, weight loss, smoking cessation
and other wellness goals), the TPS does not currently have a comprehensive
psychological health and safety management system. The Service also does not have a
comprehensive statement on psychological wellness for its officers. While the Standard
is an excellent general guideline for establishing a psychological occupational health and
safety system for all organizations, the TPS may find it useful to refine it (perhaps in
consultation with the Standard’s authors) in order to facilitate its application to police
services.
C. Psychological wellness resources for TPS members
14. The TPS offers four primary psychological wellness resources to members of the
Service: (1) the Psychological Wellness Program, which consists of: (a) mandatory
psychological wellness visits with the in-house TPS psychologists for a subset of
members whose jobs have been determined to place them at an elevated risk of a
psychological operational stress injury; and (b) the option of voluntary consultation
with a TPS psychologist for members who do not benefit from mandatory visits; (2) the
availability of psychological counselling with a trained counsellor or psychologist
external to the Service through the Employee and Family Assistance Plan (EFAP); (3)
critical incident response; and (4) peer support groups.
9
Mental Health Commission of Canada et al., National Standard of Canada: Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace ¬-
Prevention, Promotion and Guidance to Staged Implementation (Mississauga, ON: Canadian Standards Association & Bureau
de normalisation, 2013), online: Mental Health Commission of Canada
.
10
Id. at 1.
11
Id. at 5-14.
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