Our Chair, Dr Chris Maylea, speaks with The Guardian about our concerns with police being untrained to de-escalate situations with people suffering from mental illness and the damaging effects their recent violence has had, not only on the person they’re apprehending, but on all people living with mental or emotional distress.
“If somebody seeks help and they end up being brutalised or traumatised, they are much less likely to seek help again in the future. Their trust in the system is completely eroded by this kind of violence. And it’s not just that person, every other person who reads the news or watches TV and sees this kind of response goes, ‘I don’t think I’m going to seek mental health support, if that’s what’s going to happen to me’.”
Read the full article here.