Mental Health Act

    You receive a call to attend with your partner to a person in distress. The dispatcher advises of a 40 year old woman who is having problems with her 15 year old daughter. She is threatening suicide and locked in her bedroom. The woman explains that she has taken away her daughters cell phone due to outrageously high and unaffordable wi-fi use. There have been other behavioural issues as well including underage drinking and cannabis use, poor grades, and hanging around with friends who are involved in minor criminal activities. The daughter has threatened suicide before (last time her cell phone was removed for disciplinary reasons) and on that occasion she actually used a knife to cut lightly her wrists. ( An action known as “cutting”). On that occasion her daughter was referred to a counsellor but once she received her phone back she refused to attend even a single session. On your arrival the daughter has come out of her room and is in a heated verbal exchange with her mother. She becomes belligerent with you and your partner telling you on several occasions to ‘f,,, off ‘ and that she cannot live without her phone and will indeed kill herself unless her mom gives her back her phone. The mother tells you the bill has reached $1100.00 and she can’t pay it and the phone company has cut off the use of the phone. Last time she paid off the bill using her credit card her daughter just ran the bill back up and she still has not paid off the previous credit card bill. The more you try and speak with her daughter the more out of control things become and she begins to get dressed in her jacket and boots and tells you to F… off she is leaving and heads towards the door telling her mom "not to look for her” it won’t be pretty. As the daughter heads to the door what are your actions.. Write an explanation of how you would handle this call from this point forward.. What communication tools deescalation techniques could you take