Crisis Intervention Team
The Colonial Area Crisis Intervention Team brings together local stakeholders in an effort to improve the way law enforcement and community members respond to people experiencing behavioral health crises.
These local stakeholders include:
- Law enforcement officers;
- Emergency dispatchers;
- Mental health treatment providers;
- Hospitals;
- Non-law enforcement first responders;
- Individuals receiving mental health services;
- Family members and advocates.
The program focuses on enhancing community collaboration while developing effective programs and responses to individuals with mental health issues. Crisis Intervention Team training is aimed at improving criminal justice and the mental health system responses to crises.
CIT represents a major step forward in acknowledging that mental illness is a disease, and recognizing the fact arrest is not always an appropriate response to someone whose behavior is directly related to his or her disease.
Click here to view the Colonial Area CIT brochure.
Goals
- Improve interactions between law enforcement and persons with mental illness;
- Prevent inappropriate restraint, incarceration and stigmatization of persons with mental illness;
- Reduce injury to officers, family members and individuals in crisis;
- Link individuals with mental illness to appropriate treatment and resources in the community;
- Reduce concerns among family and friends of those with mental illness by providing the knowledge there are specially trained officers who can de-escalate the situation; and
- Reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness by distinguishing the difference between symptoms of mental illness and crime.
Training
The success of the Crisis Intervention Team program depends on officers' willingness to participate in an intensive training program.
The program provides information on: signs and symptoms of mental illness; medication and treatment; suicide assessment and prevention; mental health issues in children and the elderly; alcohol and drug assessments and issues; and de-escalation techniques. Mental health providers, clients and advocates provide information through classroom-based and role-rehearsal training.
Program History
The Colonial Area Crisis Intervention Team was founded in 2012 with grant funding received from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. This grant allowed the Colonial Area Crisis Intervention Team to develop a core group of agency partners, and begin the process of training local law enforcement officers.
Since its inception, more than 260 members of the community, including 215 police officers, have been trained.
Contact
For more information about Colonial Area CIT, contact CIT Coordinator Al Boswell at aboswell@colonialbh.org or 757-810-8901.
Community Partners
- Colonial Community Criminal Justice Board
- Colonial Behavioral Health
- Colonial Williamsburg
- Eastern State Hospital
- James City County Police Department
- National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI)
- Poquoson Police Department
- Riverside Doctors’ Hospital Williamsburg
- Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services
- Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail
- William & Mary Police Department
- Williamsburg-James City Sheriff's Office
- Williamsburg Police Department
- York-Poquoson Sheriff's Office
