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2017 Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) completes training

The third annual Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training was held from May 1 to 5 for Washington County law enforcement personnel. The culminating activity was participating in role plays to test officer’s abilities to de-escalate potential community situations.

For example,

Officers are dispatched to:

— a convenience store where a “suspicious person” is pacing up and down on the sidewalk mumbling to himself and stopping passersby, begging them to stop the demons;

— the community library where a student has been sitting silent for hours and is unwilling to leave or respond to staff when the library is closing;

— the Williamstown Bridge where an elderly man is standing on the railing, yelling to leave him alone or he will jump;

— an apartment complex where a resident is blasting loud music and refusing to turn it down because she requires the motivation to get her sculptures/paintings completed before her private art show in New York City; and

— an alley where a teen is hiding, saying that he is on a stakeout and even though he is “one of you,” he wants you to leave or you will blow his cover.

These were a few of the role plays presented to the officers who attended this 35-hour CIT training sponsored by the Washington County Behavioral Health Board. The goals of role-playing these scenes were to get participants to recognize clues to possible sources of the problem; to calmly de-escalate the situation; and then to get them to a hospital or treatment facility.

Before the officers participated in these culminating role plays, they had presentations on the goals, benefits, and necessity of CIT training; an overview of mental illnesses; suicide/LOSS teams; case law; how to protect first responders’ well-being, trauma-informed care; the Emergency Process in Washington County; and how to complete the appropriate forms for those being taken to the hospital due to a suspected mental illness or substance use disorder; along with many more.

There were also three panels. One was composed of people from the community who told their own stories about mental illness/substance use disorder, another was composed of individuals who had been challenged by a suicide/mental illness/substance use disorder of a close family member; and another was made up of community members who wanted to share their knowledge of what services were available to Washington residents so that officers could assist with finding resident’s solutions to problems.

Nineteen participants graduated from the five-day training at the Washington County Emergency Management Agency. CIT graduates from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office were Amber Blosser-Ashby, Kevin Carr, Eric Hunter, Loretta Parks, Brian Rhodes, Paige Ridenour, Justin Sheaves, Tyler Stephens, and Chaplain Truman Noe. From the Marietta Police Department, the graduates were Glen McClelland, Jared Richards, Rhett Walters, and Katherine Warden. The Belpre City Police Department graduates were Kerry Nichols and Mike Stump. The Marietta College Police Department graduates were Ben Brown and Michael Dailey; and the Ohio State Highway Patrol had two graduates, Luke Forshey and Dustin Payne.

On May 22, the CIT Committee met to evaluate the 2017 CIT training, to plan ways to improve the training for 2018, and to begin working on an additional one-day training that was requested by this year’s CIT participants.

Karen Binkley is director of resources for the United Way of Washington County.

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