The Collierville Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is a division that is specially trained to deal with calls that may involve individuals who are suffering from mental issues brought on by a crisis situation or medical problem. Because May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re highlighting this team of specially trained officers.

Lieutenant Aaron Pitman (pictured) is the CPD’s CIT Coordinator. He manages a unit of 55 officers who are specially trained to deal with crisis situations. Pitman said all of Collierville’s officers are given some training in crisis intervention, but the 55 CIT officers are given extensive, detailed classes in how to handle such situations.

The training CIT officers receive takes place over a full 40-hour week schedule at the Memphis Training Academy in Frayser. The first three days are in the classroom and consist of learning about what mental illness looks like, what they might encounter on a crisis call, and how to deal with people in crisis.

“You learn active listening skills and de-escalation skills, as well as how to build rapport with anyone who is going through a crisis,” said Pitman. “The idea is to find help for them first, rather than punishing them with a charge.”

The fourth day of training is set aside for role playing various mental health related scenarios. Based upon their classroom training of asking the correct open-ended questions, asking the wrong question will get the officers the buzzer in these role plays.

The fifth day is a full day of role play with officers from different agencies. They put into action what was learned on the previous four days and do it over and over again, sometimes with people they don’t know, raising the ante of unpredictability that is common in dealing with crisis situations. All participants are debriefed at the end of the day’s session.

Once the officers finish their training and get their certification, they go back to work and start handling the crisis calls immediately. The more calls they respond to, the better they get at determining the problem and getting the subject the help that is needed.

CIT officers re-certify every year to learn any new information that has come to light. The CIT Coordinators meet quarterly to talk about what trends they are seeing – new ideas and ways of managing crisis, or new hospital programs that treat people in crisis.

The CIT trained officers all wear a pin with a special logo (pictured) that lets people know they are equipped to deal with crisis situations. Lt Pitman said that some callers won’t talk to an officer who isn’t wearing the pin and will sometimes ask for a CIT officer who is known to them.

Once a team of CIT officers has responded to a call, their first priority is to assess the situation as to the cause of the crisis. It could be any number of situations – possible suicide, Alzheimer’s or dementia related, or other family crisis. They ask open-ended questions and establish a rapport with the person in crisis. Even if the person in crisis assures the officers that he or she will be okay, the officers are obligated to take the person to a facility to be professionally assessed, and they have to file a report about the call. They team with several area hospitals – Crestwind Behavioral Health in Germantown and Lakeside Behavioral Health in Bartlett, as well as the Veterans Administration Hospital and LeBonheur in Memphis.

Lieutenant Pitman has been a police officer for just 15 years, but he realizes that things were done very differently in the past. He sees the crisis training as another hat for police officers to wear, and learning about mental illness and how it works is part of that new role. He sees the CIT training as teaching officers how to problem solve in crisis situations – determining whether someone needs third party to listen, some extra encouragement, or transportation to a medical facility.

“It’s really a great program,” said Pitman. “It humanizes the people who are going through a crisis.”