A team from the ACT’s Police, Ambulance and Clinician Early Response (PACER) program have returned from Tasmania after assisting their island counterparts in the development and training of the State’s first PACER cohort.
ACT’‘s PACER team consists of a police officer, a paramedic and a mental health clinician who work together in the same vehicle to respond to, assess and help people in the community experiencing a mental health crisis.
PACER Co-ordinator for the ACT Ambulance Service (ACTAS), Megan Davis said the PACER program had become an integral part of the Territory’s emergency frontline response.
Ms Davis said the Tasmanian combined crew had based their newly developed Tasmanian PACER on the model and had had ongoing guidance and support from the Territory crew for the past 18 months while they prepared for the launch.
“The ACT PACER delegation led two days of presentations and meetings that allowed them to pass on their breadth of knowledge to the Tasmanian PACER trainees, as well as provide operational guidance to the management team,” she said.
“The experience was so greatly beneficial for everyone involved.
“The team and I felt so humbled and honoured to be invited to Tasmania.
“Being able to share our knowledge and experience with ACT PACER for the development of Tasmania’s PACER team is a really incredible and rewarding experience.”
PACER Co-ordinator said the trip was an amazing opportunity for the ACT team to reflect on the development of PACER and to see how far they had come since its launch in December 2019.
“I’m really proud to see how much we’ve grown and that we are now able to play a role in the implementation of this system in another State,” she said.
“I really look forward to seeing the benefits of this model to the Tasmania community and know they will be able to provide valuable insights to our ACT team,” Ms Davis said.
