History
Starting in the 1970’s, there was a national movement to close mental health hospitals and reduce the number of beds available for in-patient care. Shelters, community based clinics and private and municipal organizations provided the mainframe for meeting the needs of a growing population requiring services. In Memphis in 1988, a series of unfortunate interactions occurred between individuals with mental illness and law enforcement. With the community and National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) meeting with civic and law enforcement officials a program was formulated by the police and named Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training.
Realizing that throughout the country the mental health system was without a mechanism to meet the “24/7” need for those in the community in crisis, CIT programs were developed in other towns and cities. Incorporating the experience gained over three years of intensive instruction and training by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Program, MH Consultants incorporated in 2007. Meeting the need of safely de-escalating crisis situations for people with serious mental illness, substance intoxication or developmental disability by first responders from law enforcement and realizing that others might benefit from our knowledge and experience we created our program for other law enforcement and non-law enforcement organizations.
The CPD CIT program has trained over 750 officers (with an additional 80 transit and campus law enforcement personnel). To date since 2004, there has not been any serious injury to any of the officers (one minor soft tissue injury) in the recorded 450 interventions. Community safety has been enhanced and communication improved in identifying potentially volatile situations between families and law enforcement. It has resulted in the best use of time and resources and provided opportunity to change, in some circumstances, people’s lives positively for the first time.
MH Consultants has incorporated techniques that are proven and effective for a large police force encountering an array of incidents involving teens to the elderly under extreme circumstances. We provide similar instruction content and training that CPD CIT has developed and has led to their recognition by leading national organizations (see Awards). Our goal is to provide the “tools” to your staff beginning with evaluating local factors unique to your organization be it law enforcement, commercial, civil or private domain (see Programs). We strive to partner with our clients leaving you and your staff better informed and equipped to deal with future encounters and situations with individuals in crisis as a result of our education and training (see Past Clients).
For more information, please contact us. See awards and Presentations.