Partnership Working

Not for the first time, I was recently told during a discussion about the police / mental health interface that solutions to problems will be found in partnership working and that “we need to stop talking about what is your job and what is mine.”  I admit to having had a small cerebral dysfunction as my brain immediately condemned this kind of insight to the bin.  I tried really hard to reflect on my reaction and lift this feedback into the light so I could see it more clearly.

The more I thought about it, the further into the bin I wished to put it because it struck me as a very bland kind of patronising response to elicit more examples of a mental health system is guilty of creeping criminalisation and contingency, via policing.  I also immediately reflected that policing does this too, to our mental health system.  So…