Crisis Intervention Team

CIT is a collaborative effort between law enforcement and the mental health community to help law enforcement officers handle incidents involving mentally ill people.  CIT is a community-based collaboration between law enforcement, NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), mental health consumers, mental health providers and local universities.  Volunteer patrol officers receive 40 hours of training in mental illness and the local mental health system.  The training is provided free of charge by the mental health community, providers, consumers and family members.  The training focuses on providing practical techniques for de-escalating crises. The Supreme Court of Ohio Advisory Committee on Mental Illness and the Courts (ACMIC) has worked to encourage Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training state-wide.

Crisis Intervention Team programs across the country help direct persons with mental illness into treatment instead of inappropriate incarceration.  The forty-hour training provides practical techniques for de-escalating crises.  Officers learn to integrate their police training with some different approaches to a person they believe to have a mental disorder.  Role playing is utilized to make the experience as close to reality as possible.

In 2000, the Akron Police Department became the first in Ohio to start a CIT program.  The Coordinating Center of Excellence helps to bring CIT to communities across the state.

 

 

Articles about CIT

Police Learn Better Response to People with Mental Illness (PDF)

Lessons Learned in Implementing CIT Training (Hancock County) (PDF)

Origin of the National CIT Logo (PDF)

Core elements for CIT: Ohio CIT Coordinators Expert Consensus Document, developed by the Ohio CIT Coordinators Committee in Conjunction with the Ohio Criminal Justice Coordinating Center of Excellence

Shared Concerns: Family Members and Law Enforcement by Carole Ann Jazbec, NAMI Coordination and Family Member(PDF)

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training Sees Immediate Results by Dr. S.R. Thorward, Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare (PDF)

A Graduating Officer’s Enthusiasm for CIT Training by Kay Werk, M.S.W (PDF)

Dutiful Minds Dealing with Mental Illness (PDF)

What is CIT? Why do you need one in your community? An interview of Mark Munetz, MD by Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton (PDF)

CIT Toolkit - Everything you need to know to start CIT in your community (PDF)

Crisis Intervention Team Training-60 Days Later (PDF)

First Crisis Intervention Team Training has 15 Brown County Graduates (PDF)

Overview of CIT (PDF)

For additional information, visit http://www.namiohio.org/cit.html