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Introduction
Health Care For
Homeless Veterans
Florida Assertive
Community Treatment
Helping Hands
Clinic
Veterans Video
Network
Mental Health
Intensive Case Management
Crisis
Intervention Team
Assisted Living
Facilities
National Alliance
On Mental Illnesses
Alachua County
Survivors Of Suicide and Alachua County Crisis Center
Mental Health
Court
Acknowledgements |
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On March 25, 2005, twenty-two
officers from Alachua County completed Crisis Intervention Team
(CIT) Training. These officers are the first in Alachua County to
receive the forty-hour intensive “first responder” training designed
to safely and effectively intervene with adults and children with
mental illness. The CIT training model developed in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1998 in response to citizen outrage after an officer
fatally shot a man with mental illness. Within four years of
implementation in Memphis, police-inflicted injuries to mental
health patients were reduced by 40%. CIT programs have demonstrated
reduced stigma and perception of danger attached to mental illness,
reduced use of restraints or deadly force, lower arrest rates, and a
decreased need for acute hospitalization. There is a move to make
these programs the norm and not the exception throughout the
country. In Florida, CIT programs can be found in Orlando, St.
Petersburg, Daytona Beach, Palm Beach, Seminole County and now,
Alachua County. Law enforcement, mental health providers, as well as
people with mental illness and their families endorse CIT training.
In CIT programs, law enforcement officers volunteer to be on a
first-response team when intervention with mentally ill individuals
is necessary. Alachua County training involved classroom lectures,
role-play scenarios, and site visits to mental health facilities.
Lectures provided information on the spectrum of psychiatric
disorders, psychotropic medications, community resources, empathic
communication and the family perspective. The site visits gave the
officers an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the
facilities, establish contacts, and interact with patients. The
latter gave the officers a first hand account of how a person with a
mental illness prefers to be treated by law enforcement. In the
role-play scenarios, officers demonstrated techniques they would use
when responding to a crisis situation. Immediate feedback from CIT
trainers was provided to make the experience educational for all
those involved. Alachua County plans to train three-hundred officers
in three years. The next training session will take place in June
2005.
For more information, contact Gerald Kish, Director of Continuity of
Care at North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Facility
(352)-264-8221.
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