TRAINING COMPLETED … Eleven law enforcement officers completed a week-long Crisis Intervention Team training in early October that was sponsored by the Four County ADAMhs Board. CIT training instructors were (front row from left): Brenda Byers, Recovery Services of Northwest Ohio; Bethany Shirkey, Four County ADAMhs Board; Drena Teague, retired mental health social worker; Jamie Mendez, Napoleon police detective; and Dave Mack, Napoleon police chief. CIT class participants (back row from left): Pioneer police officer Parker Phillips, Bryan K9 officer Matt Sammons, Bryan police officers Ricardo Amador and Mason Zuck, Napoleon police patrolman Ryan VonDeylen, Fulton County sheriff deputies Darren Ward and Noah Eisel, Defiance police lieutenant Steve Waldron, Defiance police patrolmen Tristan Sanders and Zachary Higgins, and Fayette police officer Nicole Ferguson.
Eleven law enforcement officers from six different departments completed a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training sponsored by the Four County ADAMhs Board in early October.
This was the 12th training that the ADAMhs Board has coordinated in the last 10 years. A total of 174 law enforcement officers from area police and sheriff departments as well as probation, corrections officers and chaplains have been trained in techniques that have been proven effective for de-escalating crisis situations involving mentally ill persons.
During the week-long training, a variety of mental health topics are presented to help participants recognize when they are dealing with a situation that may involve someone with a mental illness and understand how mental illnesses are treated as well as the types of medications that may be prescribed.
Drena Teague, a retired social worker who worked in the area’s mental health system, has coordinated all of the trainings. She explained that a lot of time is spent explaining and demonstrating how someone with a mental illness behaves when they are experiencing a mental health crisis.
The instructors’ presentations are supported by a panel of family members and persons with a mental illness who explain how they act and respond to others when they aren’t doing well. The panelists also explain how they would like to be treated and interact with others, including law enforcement.
During the week, participants learn that the assertive skills and approaches that police officers have been trained to use in a crisis will often make a crisis involving someone with a mental illness worse.
Instructors for the training included Napoleon Police Chief Dave Mack and Detective Jamie Mendez, Bethany Shirkey with the ADAMhs Board, and Brenda Byers with Recovery Services of Northwest Ohio.
Another ADAMhs Board sponsored CIT training is scheduled for November. The CIT program was developed a number of years ago by the NAMI affiliate in Memphis, Tennessee and the city’s police department following an incident involving a mentally ill person that ended tragically.
Today, the program is widely used to teach police how to safely and humanely handle calls that involve someone who is mentally ill.
With more than 170 law enforcement officers now trained in CIT in Defiance, Fulton, Henry and Williams counties, family members or friends of a loved one with a mental illness are encouraged to tell the police when they need help if the situation involves someone with a mental illness and to request a CIT-trained officer if the department has one on duty.