VIDEO. He helps the homeless in mental distress with his mobile team

During patrols, Jean-Michel and his team provide people on the street with medical care and follow-up. But their role is also to help them find a place in a residential centre, take them to the hospital, or even help them redo their papers.

“We are the ones who go to people, this is called the practice of ‘going to’. So we take the situation of the person as a whole: his social situation, health, and his mental health. It is a triple assessment.“Today, Brut followed the social worker through the streets of the capital with his EMPP, a mobile psychiatry and precariousness team. According to a study by Inserm and the Observatoire du Samu Social, a third of people on the street would suffer from a severe psychiatric disorder.

Today, resources are lacking and EMPPs face several problems: lack of means, procedures for accessing rights which can take months or even years, emergency accommodation centers that are often full, or shrinking professional staff. But despite the difficulties encountered, the social worker and his teams do not intend to give up. 27 different languages ​​are spoken in this unit and all patients can be helped by interpreters.