Ottawa social worker Elaine Birchall shares insight for police officers who may be handling calls that involve stockpiling and/or full-on hoarding.

Anyone else having trouble finding toilet paper or flour?

In the May episode of Blue Line, The Podcast, we take a look at panic buying and the calls those on the frontline may have to attend that involve such incidents.

Elaine Birchall, a hoarding behaviour and intervention specialist, is our guest this month. She is the founder of the Canadian National Hoarding Coalition and also spent time as a counsellor with the Nepean Police Victim Crisis Unit (long since amalgamated into the Ottawa Police Service).

She says learning the criteria and how to assess a given situation will help officers avoid unnecessary poor outcomes and improve compliance.

"A reasonable accommodation for police officers might just mean being aware that an abundance of caution might be warranted, because hoarding is not about housekeeping," Birchall says. "It's about the void that person is trying to fill for different reasons. And they [police officers] can't solve that void; they just need to be aware of it so they can modulate their interaction with the person."

Listen to the SoundCloud link on our website for the full conversation or on Apple Podcasts under Annex Business Media: Podcasts.

You can also stream the show at annexbusinessmedia.com/podcasts or on the playlist HERE.

Did you miss our BONUS episode with Toronto Deputy Police Chief Shawna Coxon? Listen HERE.

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