Queensland Centre For Mental Health Research

It is estimated that as much as 50% of police time is spent in responding to incidents involving a person with mental illness. These interactions provide an opportunity to positively intervene in the trajectories of people with mental illness in order to improve outcomes and reduce downstream engagement with the criminal justice system. Professor Heffernan collaborates extensively with both police and ambulance responders to enhance responses by police and mental health services to persons with mental illness in the community. His work in this area has led to award winning innovation  such as the Police Communications Centre Mental Health Liaison Service, a consultation-liaison service to facilitate information sharing between mental health services and police. Building on this success, Ed is currently working collaboratively with Queensland Police and Ambulance Services as the director of Partners in Prevention: Understanding and enhancing first responses to suicide crisis situations.

The prevalence of mental disorders among people in custody is magnitudes higher than it is for the general population. However access to adequate mental health care both in custody and in transition back to the community is often limited. This is evident in the mental health related mortality and morbidity experienced by those recently released from custodial settings. Ed has been involved in research that has resulted in significant improvements in service delivery to people living with mental illness in custodial settings for over a decade. He led the first Australian systematic assessment of substance use disorders and mental health needs among a watch house population and was the principal investigator of Australia’s largest systematic survey of the mental health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody.  He is also involved in several projects that seek to enhance and evaluate mental health services, including: identifying the prevalence of mental disorders among those involved in police negotiator situations; national benchmarking of mental health court liaison and prison mental health services; outcomes of the individuals who are assessed by the Queensland Court Liaison Service; outcomes of a specialist in-reach mental health program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody; a study of aspects of fitness for interview by police, fitness for trial and the criminal justice processes and procedures of individuals found to be of unsound mind in Queensland; and a national comparison of the use of involuntary mental health treatment orders in Australia.

Experiences of trauma, post-traumatic stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are highly prevalent among people who come into contact with first responders (police and ambulance) or the criminal justice system. For example, while the lifetime prevalence of PTSD in the Australian community is estimated to be around 7%¹, Ed’s research has shown that the prevalence of diagnosed PTSD may be as high as 47%² among incarcerated Indigenous women; the twelve-month prevalence of PTSD among Indigenous men in prison also exceeds the national average³. This is significant as these experiences are often relevant to the presentation and outcomes for individuals. Trauma is not limited to those who find themselves in the criminal justice system, but is also experienced among first responders to crisis situations. Service providers with the responsibility to care for individuals, either in crisis or in the criminal justice system, often feel inadequately trained or ill-equipped to recognise the manifestations of trauma or assist in managing these problems. Ed’s research interests in this area include: research to provide effective treatment and management approaches for people in custody; and the training, support and development needs of first responders to mental health and suicide crises.

¹ McEvoy, P. M., Grove, R., and Slade, T. (2011). Epidemiology of anxiety disorders in the Australian general population: Findings of the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 45(11), 957-967. DOI: 10.3109/00048674.2011.624083.

² Heffernan, E., Anderson, K., Aboud, A., Scotney, A., Kinner, S., Kilroy, K., Davidson, F. (2014). The Family Business: Improving the understanding and treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among incarcerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Queensland Forensic Mental Health Service, Brisbane.

³ Heffernan, E., Andersen, K., Davidson, F. and Kinner, S. A. (2015), PTSD Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Custody in Australia: Prevalence and Correlates. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 28: 523–530. doi:10.1002/jts.22051