At Monday morning’s Kosciusko County Crisis Intervention Team stakeholder group meeting, several community agencies signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the goals and protocols to better the county’s crisis response system. Pictured are representatives of the different agencies. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — As part of the Kosciusko County Crisis Intervention Team stakeholder group meeting Monday, March 18, a number of community agencies signed a memorandum of understanding regarding goals and protocols to better the county’s crisis response system.

Those agencies included the Warsaw Police Department; Kosciusko County Sheriff’s, Probation, Dispatch, Community Corrections, Prosecutor’s offices; Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory C.A.R.E.S., Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital, Parkview Kosciusko Hospital, Bowen Center and Fellowship Missions.

Mikaela Bixler, Community Assistance Resources & Emergency Services community health coordinator, explained, “I think it’s just really important that all of these different agencies in the community and the people in charge of these agencies are taking the time to come together, agree on the terms in the MOU, showing what our priorities are as a community, and then signing that, saying we are committed to bettering our crisis response system related to mental health and making sure that people with a mental health condition or having a mental health crisis are getting the response that they deserve.

“And it’s about keeping the people responding safe as well, knowing how to communicate with the different symptoms that somebody might be experiencing and things like that.”

According to a copy of the MOU, the CIT partners will work cooperatively to build and improve partnerships amongst local law enforcement and first responders, dispatch, mental health providers; individuals and families affected by mental illness and substance use disorders; and other community stakeholders to improve system prevention and response to mental health and substance use disorder crises.

The parties also will promote the CIT model, identify and improve awareness of existing crisis response resources, support CIT training and participate in evaluation of CIT goals and outcome measures.

Additionally, the parties will collaborate and contribute to the advisory committee in pursuit of the following outcomes at the state and community level: provide the most appropriate response to 911 calls related to mental health, emphasize treatment rather than incarceration of people living with mental illness, decrease the proportion of people with mental illness in jail, prevent the inappropriate incarceration and/or criminalization of people with mental illness, improve the turnaround time for law enforcement officers at the community level, decrease officer injury rates, decrease injury rates to persons experiencing a mental health crisis requiring law enforcement involvement and increase law enforcement officers’ knowledge about mental illness and increase skills in their interactions with people with mental illness and substance use disorder.

The CIT program provides training and education to law enforcement officers to assist them in more effectively managing crisis events in the community when they encounter individuals who are experiencing behavioral health crises due to mental illness and/or co-occurring substance use disorders, along with the information necessary to guide officers in redirecting these individuals away from the criminal justice system and into emergency behavioral health facilities, according to information from CIT International Inc.

The local CIT group began with C.A.R.E.S.

Bixler said one of the jobs of C.A.R.E.S. is to respond to mental health crises and help fill in the gaps of the mental health system.
“I found out that in order to do that effectively, we needed to probably do some systems change in our community,” she said. “I thought CIT would be a good way to do that, so we got everyone together from all of the different agencies that are involved in the mental health crisis response system, and we came together and talked about what the gaps in the system are.”

They surveyed front-line workers, such as police officers, firefighters and EMS, and talked about what needed to change.

“CIT is all about systems change, and so that’s what we’re doing. All of these people are coming together to try to change the system to make it better for the frontline workers and for the people who have to call 911 to get mental health care. Ideally, people wouldn’t have to call 911 to get mental health care, so that’s why we have people that work in mental health … to work on things like diversion from the jail to either in-patient or out-patient treatment as well,” Bixler said.

The stakeholder group meets once a month as needed to discuss anything they’re seeing in the system that needs changed or to plan for the CIT training.

With the CIT training, the goal is to have at least one CIT-trained officer on shift at all times throughout the county.

“So, ideally, if it’s a mental health call, a CIT officer, who is trained in mental health and community resources, will respond and help figure out that situation. Ideally, CARES will respond as well and help either get someone the individualized treatment that they need or help them stay at home with the resources that they need,” Bixler said.

The first CIT training is 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 6-10 at the WPD training facility, with the deadline to sign up being March 31. A second CIT training is being planned for Sept. 16-20.

Officers who attend CIT receive 40 hours of specialized instruction from behavioral health experts from their community, previously trained CIT officers and actual consumers and family members, the information from CIT International states. This intensive advanced-officer training is designed to help officers gain understanding about mental health disorders, substance use disorders and developmental disorders, developing a basic foundation from which officers build their skills.

Chris Francis, WPD officer and coordinator on the law enforcement side for the stakeholder group, said, “One of the first aspects — and where my role comes into play with it – is coordinating training across the agencies within the area so that we all can share a similar response, similar protocol and be able to respond appropriately. And that’s where it’s really beneficial with the partnership that’s been formed, with Bowen Center, Parkview, LKH.”

When Francis first started as an officer, he said one of the trainers he went through was for CIT and that was mandatory. He also went through advanced CIT training.

“With the increase in mental health-related responses that we’ve had, and the changing of direction that law enforcement has taken in terms of responding to a mental health emergency, it’s important that we all share common goals and training,” he said.

The MOU is historical in terms of a collaborative partnership amongst the agencies within the county, he said.

“One of the biggest things is making sure that we’re responding appropriately. You look back and it would take a law enforcement officer – they’d go through their field training, they’d go through the academy — and mental health is a portion of that, but you’re taking somebody who is possibly within their early twenties that’s never had any specific training in mental health through a lengthy course in mental health response and we’d expect them to go out to that house and just snap their fingers and know how to handle the situation,” Francis said.

“So what we’re looking at here is getting officers in the mix, as far as a fully-trained CIT officer, and then also getting officers acclimated to what a mental health response looks like and being able to have the appropriate resources beyond that initial contact, whether that be the app CARES came up with or a list of resources that we have that were available to respond to, or have agencies come and respond to the scene, and maybe pass it off to the appropriate resource.”

He said the officer’s first concern is safety.

“And that’s what we want to make sure — that the scene is safe or that the individual is safe to pass off to somebody else … we just want to make sure, as far as law enforcement side, that everything is safe and we are putting the individual into the appropriate hands.”

Questions about the CIT training can be directed to Francis by email at [email protected] or to Bixler at [email protected].