Interagency collaboration models for people with mental ill health in contact with the police: a systematic scoping review

Abstract

ObjectiveTo identify existing evidence on interagency collaboration between law enforcement, emergency services, statutory services and third sector agencies regarding people with mental ill health.DesignSystematic scoping review. Scoping reviews map particular research areas to identify research gaps.Data sources and eligibilityASSIA, CENTRAL, the Cochrane Library databases, Criminal Justice Abstracts, ERIC, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PROSPERO and Social Care Online and Social Sciences Citation Index were searched up to 2017, as were grey literature and hand searches. Eligible articles were empirical evaluations or descriptions of models of interagency collaboration between the police and other agencies.Study appraisal and synthesisScreening and data extraction were undertaken independently by two researchers. Arksey’s framework was used to collate and map included studies.ResultsOne hundred and twenty-five studies were included. The majority of articles were of descriptions of models (28%), mixed methods evaluations of models (18%) and single service evaluations (14%). The most frequently reported outcomes (52%) were ‘organisational or service level outcomes’ (eg, arrest rates). Most articles (53%) focused on adults with mental ill health, whereas others focused on adult offenders with mental ill health (17.4%). Thirteen models of interagency collaboration were described, each involving between 2 and 13 agencies. Frequently reported models were ‘prearrest diversion’ of people with mental ill health (34%), ‘coresponse’ involving joint response by police officers paired with mental health professionals (28.6%) and ‘jail diversion’ following arrest (23.8%).ConclusionsWe identified 13 different interagency collaboration models catering for a range of mental health-related interactions. All but one of these models involved the police and mental health services or professionals. Several models have sufficient literature to warrant full systematic reviews of their effectiveness, whereas others need robust evaluation, by randomised controlled trial where appropriate. Future evaluations should focus on health-related outcomes and the impact on key stakeholders.

The crime, mental health, and economic impacts of prearrest diversion of people with mental health problems: A systematic review

“…Firstly, the review only identified two outcomes studies, evaluating prearrest diversion in four independent sites. With the routine implementation of prearrest diversion in many police districts in many countries, this is surprisingly few (Parker et al, ). Although the search generated 60 potentially eligible studies, almost half were excluded on population, intervention, or study type (27).…”

Cairns Mental Health Co‐Responder Project: Essential elements and challenges to programme implementation

“…A major perceived challenge to CMHCP implementation has been the lack of an evaluation plan. While there has been an increase of the co‐responder model in the United States, Canada, UK, and Australia, there remains a lack of rigorous research on the effectiveness of the model, particularly with regard to health outcomes (Parker et al ; Puntis et al ). CMHCP activities are logged by police and mental health team members into the respective data systems of health and police services, neither of which accurately reflect the total outputs of the CMHCP, particularly non‐crisis‐related activities, thereby hampering any quality improvement efforts.…”

Police-related triage interventions for mental health-related incidents: a rapid evidence synthesis

“…A recent scoping review of interagency collaboration models between the police and other agencies for people with apparent mental ill health identified a range of possible models. 14 These included:…”

“…31 This resulted in five reviews being included in the synthesis. 11,12,14,15,39,40 There were six articles published for the five reviews as Kane et al 11 also published their review protocol. The remaining 25 review articles were excluded from the synthesis as their methods were deemed less robust (according to DARE criteria) or were not reported.…”

“…This intervention was described in the scoping review of models of interagency collaborations. 14 The model describes multiagency integrated services to create a network to bridge gaps between services, decrease arrest, decrease violence, improve educational attendance and completion, and reduce symptoms of mental ill health and psychological distress. These may typically involve a network co-ordinator (often a MHP), a personalised action plan for individuals in mental distress and active follow-up with signposting to the relevant agency.…”