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Multiple social agencies across Edmonton have banded together to launch a new data dashboard to shed light on how and where crisis diversion teams are responding to the needs of vulnerable people in the city.
The dashboard was unveiled on Wednesday by 24/7 Crisis Diversion, a partnership between Boyle Street Community Services, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Hope Mission and Reach Edmonton. The program offers mobile assistance for vulnerable people.
Representatives from those agencies, along with non-profit PALCares, spoke about the dashboard at Boyle Street’s King Thunderbird Centre.
“It’s a really great opportunity for individuals to understand what’s happening in their communities, but also start to understand what response looks like across the city,” said Kelly Husack, director of community initiatives with Reach Edmonton.
Crisis diversion teams perform a wide range of support services, including wellness checks and connecting people to social services. Front-line workers can assist with a variety of calls ranging from offering people transportation to hospitals and shelters, conversation, food and water, opioid-poisoning response, clothing, blankets and navigation and advocacy.
The 24/7 Crisis Diversion dashboard has wide-ranging data that includes the number of dispatches for each day and month, where these dispatches took place, the types of services that outreach workers offered people in need, and where people were diverted for help.
According to the dashboard, the five busiest neighbourhoods for crisis response dispatches from January to April this year were McCauley, the downtown core, Central McDougall, the University of Alberta and Dominion Industrial.
However, calls during that time frame were also reported outside the central part of the city and even beyond Anthony Henday Drive.
Close to 1,450 people needed transportation to get support while over 300 people sought conversation with outreach workers.
“Yes, we use [data] operationally,” said Sasha Lyuber, senior data scientist and executive director with PALCares. “Yes, we try to make decisions of how we should run strategic versions of things, but there is a real responsibility here to share that data back with the community to create a bridge back.
“To do that safely, to do it responsibly, to also do it in a way that can meet the changing community needs — and also be relevant within two or three years — is something that doesn’t just take building a product, but more importantly, building the infrastructure, the relationships.”
Lyuber said the intention behind launching the dashboard was to offer granular information while still protecting the privacy of community members who use crisis diversion services.
“You only see aggregations,” he said.
“We are doing all of the calculations within our safe systems that are already locked down and only choosing to share, say, the sum of events.”
Nicholas Stone, senior manager of mobile supports and community spaces for Boyle Street Community Services’ crisis diversion program, said respect is paramount, especially as calls have become more complex in recent years.
“Dignity is everything as well, and it’s unfair for us to have information about someone in their weakest moment and then share it with the general public, because then it also adds to the stereotype of, you know, this person isn’t going anywhere in their life,” he said.
“It’s always good just to keep that confidential at the moment, just so that that person can maintain that dignity and pride within themselves as they face uncertain circumstances.”
Nicholas Stone, senior manager of mobile supports and community spaces for Boyle Street Community Services’ crisis diversion program, said protecting the privacy of clients is essential. (Mrinali Anchan/CBC News)
The dashboard team said it hopes feedback from the public helps inform and refine what data to share for policymakers to further understand the role of crisis diversion.
The dashboard is available to the public at crisisdiversionedmonton.ca.