A Trans-disciplinary Approach to Assessing Police Responses to Mental Health Crises: Development of the De-escalating Persons in Crisis Competencies Tool (DePICT)

Jennifer A. Lavoie^1,2,3*Natalie Alvarez⁴Krystle Martin^5,6,7Michael Girard⁸Terry George Coleman⁹

• ¹Departments of Criminology and Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford, ON, Canada
• ²Centre for Public Safety and Wellbeing, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford, ON, Canada
• ³Centre for Research on Security Practices, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford, ON, Canada
• ⁴Associate Dean, Scholarly, Research and Creative Activities, The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• ⁵Clinic Director, Dr Krystle Martin and Associates, Durham, ON, Canada
• ⁶Health Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
• ⁷Associate Graduate Faculty, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• ⁸Instructor (Ret.), Ontario Police College, Aylmer, Ontario, Canada
• ⁹Chief of Police (Ret.), Moose Jaw Police Service, Moose Jaw, SK, Canada

Police interactions with individuals experiencing mental health crises are complex and can potentially involve safety risks. There are longstanding calls for enhanced training in deploying de-escalation strategies to reduce police use of force specifically in situations involving people in mental health crises. To address rising mental health crisis calls for service, police organizations have delivered specialized training to enhance the abilities for frontline officers to recognize mental health problems, safely de-escalate crises, and divert individuals from the criminal justice system towards care. Given the absence of an existing protocol to evaluate de-escalation competencies specific to the realm of police mental health crisis intervention, the objective of this research was to develop and validate such a tool. Development of the framework emphasized a police and community co-design approach in which the identification of core competencies was driven by stakeholder focus groups, literature reviews, and best practices in adult-based education and experiential learning models. The tool was tested and modified using live-action simulations in which police officers were instructed to respond to five unique highintensity mental health crisis scenarios. Factor structure, internal consistency, interrater reliability, and concurrent validity were examined in a series of validation studies. The resultant framework, the De-escalating Persons in Crisis Competencies Tool (DePICT™), is a 14-item rater-observer competency-based assessment designed to systematically measure a trainee's demonstrated ability to safely de-escalate and respond to a person in mental health crisis using relational policing approaches. The DePICT™ is a reliable and valid competency-based assessment tool that, when used in scenario training applications, contributes to the acquisition of essential knowledge, skills and abilities expected of modern police officers and prepares officers for real-world job demands.