When mental health sufferers come into contact with the police, the police have no idea how to deal with the situation in hand.

They come into contact with mental health sufferers frequently and the sufferers get more agitated at the site of the police, causing them more distress and causing the police to work in ways that aren't useful to the sufferer, which causes the sufferer more agitation and distress and could lead to aggressive behaviour by them that the sufferer did not want to act out, which means the police have no choice but to use physical contact.

Another factor is because the police do not know how to deal with a mental health crisis  they are forever sending an ambulance out for people who do not need medical intervention, only mental health intervention, thus wasting ambulance resources which could be used for another person who needs urgent medical assistance.

It would be great if some mental health and trauma training could be put in place for the police, for them to have more of an understanding of how to deal with going into a situation where there is a mental health sufferer.

I am very passionate about this because I have been in multiple situations with the police before with my mental health where they have not known how to react in the appropriate way, which has included them  not knowing how to talk to me appropriately which has lead to confrontations and not being educated enough about mental health and what can happen when I am in distress which has lead to them getting physical towards me. I have also spoken to numerous other people who suffer with their mental health who have experienced similar things. I am not slating the police in any way, I have had some good experience from some police too and they do try their best, to be fair it shouldn't be their job to intervene in a crisis but maybe some training would help them to understand better since they are the ones that always seem to get put on the front line in these situations.

It would be great if enough people could sign this in hopes that my goal to get mental health and trauma training within the police  enforced and hopefully one day it just may happen. 

If this passes it will be a step in the right direction for mental health and people in crisis and will make sufferers less anxious around the police and the the police more prepared going into a crisis situation.

If this doesn't pass it's a sad situation for people with mental health and the police because they are always going to be unprepared not knowing what they are going to find going into that situation.