Mobile crisis intervention team launches in Kuujjuaq

A program that pairs a community worker with a police officer to answer 911 crisis calls has expanded to Kuujjuaq.

The mobile crisis intervention program is led by Saqijuq, a Nunavik-based organization that promotes community safety.

The team has been working with the Nunavik Police Service in Kuujjuaq since Aug. 25 to respond to calls involving mental health crises, domestic violence, suicide prevention and children and youth at risk.

A patrol team includes two social workers, a co-ordinator and police officers on a rotational basis.

“We’ve been helping and supporting in a non-violent way using de-escalation techniques to find a solution within the community and avoid detention or hospitalization,” said Maude-Émilie Drolet, Saqijuq’s program development director.

The first intervention team was launched in Puvirnituq in 2019. Drolet said the team has made a positive impact in the community.

In 2024, out of 595 interventions, 576 were successfully resolved without hospitalization or arrest, she said.

Saqijuq executive director Lukasi Whiteley-Tukkiapik said the team expects to deal with substance use and low levels of trust from the community.

“There’s much harder drugs that are coming into the region, and because of the social issues that we have they’re just going to be aggravated by these stronger substances coming in,” he said.

Saqijuq is working to promote the program to build trust with community members.

Nunavik police have been the subject of three separate investigations in the past 10 months after members of the public died in altercations with officers.

The most recent incident occurred in Inukjuak in July. Prior to that, a Kangiqsualujjuaq man died in May in an incident with police. And in November 2024, police shot and killed a man in Salluit and injured the man’s twin brother.

Nunavik Police Service deputy Chief Jean‑François Morin said he hopes the relationship between police officers and residents can be improved through the intervention program.

“It’s not that we don’t want to make time to talk to people, to listen,” Morin said in an interview, regarding crisis-type calls. “It’s just that we felt torn between taking time to speak to somebody and let them vent, and responding to conjugal violence where somebody might be getting hurt.”

For the crisis intervention team, it was essential to hire staff who not only have experience but are also familiar with the issues people in the region face, like lack of housing and substance abuse, Whiteley-Tukkiapik said.

“We made the effort to make sure that someone’s just not arriving to the region and not know anything about it,” he said.

The special patrol team can be accessed through 911 dispatch calls. Morin said there’s a plan to establish a direct line like in Puvirnituq.

Saqijuq hopes to expand the program to other Nunavik communities, but Whiteley-Tukkiapik said that will depend on funding and housing being available for workers in communities.

The launch in Kuujjuaq is funded mainly by the Ministry of Public Safety with support from the Kativik Regional Government and Makivvik Corp., Drolet said.