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Mental health crisis training for law enforcement<\/p>\n
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With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, 21 News is taking a look at some of the training officers go through to be able to recognize a crisis and how to get someone the help they need.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crisis Intervention Training or CIT has been around for decades. It’s a 40-hour course offered in every county teaching officers the importance of communication, a calming presence and de-escalation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they get louder you maybe get quieter until you can bring them back down,\u201d Lieutenant Jerry Fulmer, the Law Enforcement Coordinator for Mahoning County’s CIT said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not always there to arrest people. A good portion of our job is helping people and helping the community,\u201d Detective Sergeant Glenn Patton with the Boardman Police Department said.\u00a0\u201cSituations can be avoided just by communicating and trying to make sure that both sides\u00a0 understand what is being conveyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It’s not just officers responding to calls that are trained. Deputies in the Mahoning County Jail also use the same approaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our jail it\u2019s a daily thing,\u201d Commander Kevin Myers of the Mahoning County Sheriff\u2019s Office said about mental health crises. \u201cOne of the biggest tools we have in here is communication\u2026be patient, show compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Signs of a crisis while behind bars can be when someone stops eating or bathing. Deputies know to monitor those inmates and get them professional help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watch people in here if they don’t get help they just deteriorate and continue deteriorating and that’s not acceptable,\u201d Myers said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing mentally ill is not a crime but oftentimes causes somebody to commit minor offenses and the proper place for individuals a lot of times is treatment not incarceration,\u201d Fulmer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The awareness gets the person the help they need and makes things safer for the officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know that mental illness is such a big factor when it comes to dealing with people,\u201d Sheriff Jerry Greene of Mahoning County said. \u201cThe CIT training trains our officers how to deal with that\u2026through using that experience and training (they are) able to deescalate situations that could potentially turn violent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mental health crisis training for law enforcement With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, 21…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[276],"tags":[12280,20476,217039,217040,18,135,19,9466,17,44215,167,4225,502,217041,94],"class_list":["post-499125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-communication","tag-compassion","tag-crisis-intervention-training","tag-de-escalation","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-incarceration","tag-ireland","tag-law-enforcement","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-illness","tag-mentalhealth","tag-police-training","tag-treatment"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116624233236590552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}