LITITZ BOROUGH – Every LBPD officer has now completed Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training.

CIT is an innovative first-responder model of police-based crisis intervention with community, health care, and advocacy partnerships. The CIT model was first developed in Memphis and has spread throughout the Country. It is known as the “Memphis Model.” CIT is a pre-booking, jail diversion program designed to improve outcomes of police interactions with individuals with mental illness and provides law enforcement-based crisis intervention training for assisting those individuals with a mental illness while improving safety of officers, consumers, family members, and citizens within the community. 

CIT provided a unique opportunity to participate in cross-disciplinary training and partnerships. The LBPD believes that this agency capability will enhance community outcomes to consumers in need of mental health services in Lititz Borough. The completion of CIT provides LBPD officers with improved ability to recognize symptoms of a mental health crisis, enhance their confidence in addressing such an emergency, and reduce inaccurate beliefs about mental illness. It also provided LBPD officers with the opportunity for personal interaction with individuals with mental health diagnoses.

The 2015 President’s Task Force on 21^st Century Policing, 5.6 Recommendation, states, “POSTs should make Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) a part of both basic recruit training and in-service officer training.” While there is currently no legal mandate which requires a police officer to complete CIT, let alone the entire agency, the LBPD elected to adopt this top-down training framework. This ensures that every LBPD officer from the Chief of Police down to the newest patrol officer have all received this training and are best-prepared to address a mental health crisis, should they be called to intervene. Current LBPD officers have participated in 640 hours of in-service training specifically related to the CIT curriculum.

The LBPD maintains a written directive related to mental health responses, General Order 2.7.8, which is available for instant public access within the policy repository at LititzPD.org. Our written directive is fully compliant with PLEAC Accreditation standards and includes provisions for initial training on mental health for newly-hired officers and in-service training for current officers.

Also, the LBPD has an officer who is attached to the Crisis Negotiation Team (CNT), who is a certified crisis intervention specialist assigned to the Lancaster County SERT. This officer is an internal resource for who is available for needs within the agency and community.

For more information about Crisis Intervention in Lancaster County, click here.

Media contact: Media@LititzPD.org.