Congratulations to Officer Jesse Blank for completing the most recent Crisis Intervention Team training at the Lancaster County Public Safety Training Center.  Officer Blank, along with officers from various agencies across Lancaster County, completed 40 hours of training in responding to, interacting with, and assisting those in a mental health crisis.  Mental Health crisis is something we respond to on a regular basis and training in recognizing and knowing how to interact with persons in mental health crisis is a priority for the PTPD.  This training not only focuses on the actual interaction with the individual, but also provides important information on the different social services available to people in our community.  Officers can often help connect persons in crisis, or their family, with resources in the area that can assist them. An understanding on how those programs work and how to make that connection is an important step in helping those in crisis.    Officer Blank becomes the third PTPD Officer to complete this training and is now member of the Lancaster County Crisis Intervention Team.  The benefits of this team are explained below in an excerpt from the County Website: 

What is CIT?

The Lancaster County Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is a collaborative effort of local agencies, law enforcement, and the mental health community to ensure through consistent and astute training that mental health crisis situations are responded to with respect for the person and proper consideration of mental illness.

CIT is the first intercept for people with mental illness before getting involved in the criminal justice system.
 

CIT Explained

• CIT is police-based Crisis Intervention Team training.
• CIT is community collaboration between mental health professionals, law enforcement, family, and consumer advocates.
• CIT teams are a pre-booking, jail diversion program designed to improve outcomes of police interactions with individuals with mental illness.
• CIT is ideal for patrol officers who are first line responders involving individuals in a mental health crisis.
• CIT provides 40 hours of voluntary, specialized training to first line responders and law enforcement officers.
• CIT is now approved for 40 MPOETC CLEE hours.

Benefits of CIT

• Decreases officer injury rates
• Decreases number of arrests of individuals with mental illness
• Connects individuals in mental health crisis to appropriate mental health services
• Decreases use of force occurrences
• Decreases consumer injury rates