Mental health crisis intervention training attracting younger officers

When law enforcement officers respond to calls, they can encounter people who are experiencing a mental health crisis or have an untreated mental health disorder.

An encounter between an officer and a person in crisis can be potentially dangerous for the officer and can lead to incarceration for the person, when he or she would benefit more from assessment and treatment.

Officers are taught some crisis intervention skills at the state law enforcement academy in Richmond.

This week, 33 officers from the region — with a few from across the state — received in-depth instruction on crisis intervention at RiverValley Behavioral Health.

The training was coordinated by RiverValley and the Kentucky Crisis Intervention Team.

Krisi Baugh, one of the Kentucky CIT program directors, said the class is voluntary but added that more younger officers are taking the training.

Older officers in the classes, Baugh said, have said they wish they’d received the training sooner.

Of the 33 officers in the class at RiverValley, “There are only three officers who have worked over five years,” Baugh said. “We love that officers are getting this training earlier in their careers.”

Crisis intervention is an approach in which officers are taught to recognize the signs of a person with a mental health disorder, a person under the influence of controlled substances or a person in crisis. The class touched on topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders and geriatrics.

The goal of crisis intervention is to help calm a person and de-escalate a situation so the person in distress will be willing to be taken for a mental health assessment or for treatment.

“I’d say number one, more than anything, is how to identify someone who is having a mental health crisis,” said Heather Henderson, RiverValley’s senior director of crisis services. “That’s step one, having an awareness.”

Henderson said the idea is that if officers can convince a person to go for treatment or to be assessed, the officer is not taking the person to jail. Not having to arrest someone is safer, and the person can benefit from treatment.

“Everybody wins if we can get somebody into treatment,” Henderson said.

Baugh said officers are also taught how to have a person involuntarily committed for a mental evaluation, which includes recognizing the signs a person is in crisis, as well as making a determination that the person is a danger to themself or others.

Part of the training also focuses on teaching officers to work with their regional behavioral health providers.

RiverValley has a mobile response team that will go on calls when a person is experiencing a mental health crisis.

The mobile team often works with law enforcement, responding to officer calls involving a person in crisis.

Law enforcement will also accompany the mobile team to a scene if security is needed, Henderson said.

“We rely on them when we find ourselves in situations” that are potentially unsafe for team members, Henderson said. “We want them to rely on us, too.”

When the team was founded in 2020, it was responding to about 20 calls a month, Henderson said.

“Now, we go out 170 to 180 times a month,” Henderson said.

Baugh said, “We are seeing that more law enforcement agencies are wanting their officers … trained in CIT, so they know how to interact and communicate better” when they encounter someone in crisis.

“They are learning a lot of pieces about mental disorders,” Baugh said. “Hopefully, they’ll be able to spend some time and use their skills and get the best resources for those” in crisis.

In crisis intervention, officer safety is a top priority, Baugh said.

“We don’t want them to talk to someone in an unsafe situation,” Baugh said.

Later, she said, “But as long as they are safe, we want them to take the time to deescalate the situation” and get the person help.