In this paper, we present the outcomes of a narrative study of thirteen interviews with six child and youth mental health practitioners and seven caregivers with a child between 12 and 24 years old involved with the mental health system and with a history of police involvement. The focus of the interviews was the how young people involved with the mental health system and their caregivers had experienced police encounters. Two main categories of themes emerged. Presented here are the outcomes in terms of the reasons for and nature of the police encounters. Across the interviews, police services were accessed primarily for support to deescalate physical or verbal situations involving a distressed child. As two subcategories, police encounters were described as negative and associated with stigma and criminalization, while positive encounters were associated with the appropriate use of police authority. A call is made for more compassionate policing.

In this paper, we present the outcomes of a narrative study of 13 interviews with six child and youth mental healthpractitioners and seven caregivers with a child between 12 and 24 years old involved with the mental health system and with a history of police involvement. The focus of the interviews was on the experiences of young people involved with the mental health system, and their caregivers, with police encounters. Two categories of themes emerged. Presented here are the outcomes that show the contradictions between the child and youth mental health and police systems as contributing factors to the stigmatization and criminalization of psychiatrically distressed children and youth. A call is made for a collaboration between the mental health and police systems rooted in a commitment for de-policing crisis responses in child and youth mental health.