CIHR Catalyst Grant : Crisis Line and App-based Support for Public Safety

The Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries in Public Safety Personnel (PTSI in PSP) initiative was announced in Budget 2018, with a commitment of $20 million over five years to support a new national research consortium between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment (CIPSRT). This National Research Consortium builds the evidence base related to PTSI among PSP, under the guidance of a Public Safety Steering Committee (PSSC).

CIHR has completed two successful funding programs in this initiative; Catalyst Grants in Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries (PTSI) among Public Safety Personnel (2019), and Mental Wellness in Public Safety Team Grants (2020).

Working with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the other groups above, CIHR has developed the third and final funding program under this initiative. This third funding program will include three funding opportunities following a hub-and-spoke model; beginning with the recently launched Research and Coordination Hubs for Post-Traumatic Stress Injuries in PTSI in PSP (2021) to establish two distinct research and coordination hubs (one each to support the two streams listed below). The overarching design of this program is to build the evidence base around proper support models for PSP suffering from PTSI, using an implementation science lens.

The remaining two funding opportunities in this program will be the ‘spokes’ and will be open to the broader research community. This funding will directly build on the work of the research and coordination hubs and will broaden the pool of potential research questions – and research groups – that can be addressed/funded. This funding opportunity is the first of the final two ‘spoke’ funding opportunities.

There are two streams of research that will be supported across all three funding opportunities (i.e., a three-staged approach with two parallel streams).

1. The first stream aims to build the evidence base for a crisis/suicide prevention line, leveraging PHAC’s support for the development of a pan-Canadian Suicide Prevention Service (CSPS), as announced in Budget 2019 and housed at the Centre for Addition and Mental Health (CAMH).
2. The second stream aims to build the evidence base for app-based peer-to-peer (P2P) support based at McMaster University, building on the work of one of the original PTSI in PSP Catalyst grants to create a pan-Canadian PSP support app (“OnCall”), in partnership with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).

These streams were identified through extensive consultations with key stakeholders, and the two identified hubs represent the leading national activities in each of these areas.

The intent of this funding opportunity is to address innovative research questions related to the efficacy/effectiveness, feasibility, development and/or evaluation of best practices, guidance documents and uptake of both services by PSP.

Research Areas

This funding opportunity will support projects addressing research questions relevant to at least one of the two research streams supported through the Research and Coordination Hubs:

• CSPS Crisis/Suicide Prevention Line (CAMH)
• “OnCall” App-based Peer-to-Peer Support (McMaster University)

Proposed research questions are expected to be developed independently by applicants, and may address any of the specific objectives of this funding opportunity. Funded research projects should be applied in a collaborative fashion with the research and coordination hubs, using the core methodologies/technologies in place at the hubs, as much as possible.

Examples of relevant questions could include, but are not limited to:

• Developing measures to evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen support approach, including the impact on service providers as well as support recipients.
• Examining the relevance or applicability of the support mechanism for early intervention and/or acute crisis stage, as appropriate.
• – Developing measures to meaningfully compare impacts across different classes of PSP, or across different jurisdictions or working environments.
• – Comparing patterns of adoption, uptake and/or use across different classes of PSP, or across jurisdictions or working environments.
• – Identifying evidence needs to determine efficacy/effectiveness of support approaches for PSP in the current delivery context, and how to determine what modifications may be required to enhance impact.
• – Developing measures to track and monitor changes in mental distress and help-seeking behaviour of PSP support recipients.
• – Developing measures for rating or evaluating peer and expert support providers.
• – Measuring the impact of the support approach on service providers, including the needs for appropriate training and monitoring, and the potential effects on long-term resource allocation.
• – Developing evidence-informed recommendations for scale-up or future implementation of support approaches in these areas.

NOTE:
Registration deadline: March 15, 2022
Application Deadline: April 5, 2022

For more information click here.