Officers get mental health training

May 14--Area law enforcement officers have received training this week as how to deal with mentally ill individuals they might encounter. Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training is a collaborative effort between law enforcement and the mental health community to help law enforcement officers handle incidents involving mentally ill people.

"We teach the police officers how to manager people with severe persistent mental health illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression," Cyndy Bell, psychiatric certified registered nurse with Shawnee Family Health Center, said. "It's a pre-booking diversion program where we offer places for them to take them as opposed to taking them to jail, which has been the pattern in the past."

Bell said if somebody is disruptive officers have had no place to take that person other than jail because this area has lost a lot of psychiatric in-patient facilities.

The program began in 1988 in Memphis, Tennessee.

"It's in every state in the United States, every county in Ohio, and basically we're educating them totally on mental illness and how to de-escalate the situation before it becomes violent," Bell said.

On Thursday, officers were taken out for site visits where they visited with people with mental illness to see how they live and how mental health workers manage those people. Later in the day the officers were experiencing virtual reality that simulated someone with schizophrenia.

"They have headphones on that are simulating auditory hallucinations so they can experience someone managing those symptoms on a daily basis," Bell said. "Then we're going to teach them how to deal with it because if they were to approach somebody and say -- 'put your hands up' they may be tending to auditory hallucinations and not even hear what the officer is saying."

Bell said Shawnee held the training about 10 years ago and recently Portsmouth Police Chief Robert Ware contacted her and asked if it could be done again.

"We have about 30 participants from the Portsmouth Police Department, Scioto County Sheriff's Office, Portsmouth Municipal Court Probation Department and the Counseling Center," Bell said. "It's a big collaboration and it is amazing to see them tending to how we manage and we build relationships as well. So if there's an officer who has someone who is mentally ill they may be able to call and say -- 'hey Cyndy, I was in your training. I've got this problem. How can I help?'"

She said it works both ways. When she needs to she can call an officer who has been through the training if she has to go on-site where she feels somewhat uneasy.

Bell said the 40-hour training provides practical techniques for de-escalating crises. Officers learn to integrate their police training with some different approaches to a person they believe to have a mental disorder. Role playing is utilized to make the experience as close to reality as possible. Next week actors from Portsmouth Little Theater will simulate mentally ill people allowing the officers the opportunity to interact with them.

Reach Frank Lewis at 740-353-3101, ext. 1928, or on Twitter @franklewis.

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