By Michael Howell
The Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office is hosting a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Montana Academy, with Riverfront Mental Health Center and West House in Corvallis, May 16th through May 20th.
The purpose of CIT Montana is to train first responders, law enforcement officers, detention staff, and dispatchers in engaging, assessing, and assisting individuals in crisis with mental and/or co-occurring substance disorders. CIT is a 40-hour evidence based training that encompasses tools and skills needed for first responders to better manage individuals presenting with those disorders. This training exposes the participants to materials and experiences from trained mental health and medical professionals to better prepare them to effectively and safely work with this unique population. CIT Academy instruction includes suicide assessment and intervention, developmental disabilities, mental illness, legal issues, and intervention strategies among other topics.
This academy is being presented using Ravalli County instructors and presenters with assistance from the Montana Crisis Intervention Team. After successful completion of this course, law enforcement officers will be certified by Montana DPHHS Addictive & Mental Disorders Division and Montana POST as CIT Officers.
Undersheriff Steve Holton emphasized the importance of hosting this Academy locally by saying, “The real strength of this Academy is the continued partnership between law enforcement and local agencies, particularly Riverfront Mental Health and West House, to better serve this population and resolve crisis calls in the safest manner possible for everyone involved.”
Jim Anderson, a sergeant on the force in Gallatin County, is the state CIT coordinator. Each county has a team consisting of a law enforcement officer and a mental health professional to lead the program. Here in Ravalli County the CIT team consists of Sheriff’s Deputy Dan Mendonca and mental health specialist Kimber Smith from West House Western Montana Mental Health Clinic.
“We started embracing the CIT model in 2006,” said Ravalli County Undersheriff Steve Holton. “Now 90 percent of our sworn deputies are CIT trained.” Holton said that the program has saved the Sheriff’s Office a lot of expense related to time in the field. He said in the past an officer might have to wait at the Emergency Room or at the clinic for several hours, sometimes even days after dropping off someone suspected of committing a crime. Since West House, the facility operated by WMMHC, has safe lock down rooms for at least four patients, the deputy can usually go right back to work after making the transfer. According to Holton, it also saves costs related to booking into the detention center and then transporting the person to the state facility.
Holton was proud of what his department has accomplished in this area and proud to be the host of this statewide CIT Academy for the fourth time.
Dr. Kimber Smith from West House said that the training gives law enforcement officers tools that fall outside normal law enforcement training. She said officers receive training in techniques for de-escalating confrontations involving a mentally disturbed person, techniques for calming and defusing tense situations.
“It’s another tool for them to use,” she said, “in the range of incidents they encounter.” If the criminal aspect of the offense outweighs the mental health considerations, it’s a judgment call on the officer’s part. She said they can take them straight to the detention center if that’s the call. They can take a person to SAFE. Or they can bring them to West House.
“They have options,” said Smith, “and this is one of them.”
Smith said that the CIT program was something that was definitely needed in the community. She said the first month of the program the caseload tripled at West House. She said that having law enforcement personnel trained to identify symptoms and divert people away from the jail and into a place where they can receive the kind of treatment they need is not only saving money, it is saving lives.