MANSFIELD — Grant Lifer said incidents involving persons suffering with mental illness is nearly a daily occurrence in his line of work.
Lifer, an Ashland Police Division officer, said that any given day a call he may be responding to, if not multiple calls, is seemingly related to mental health.
Koen Wood, an Ashland County Sheriff’s Office deputy, agreed.
“It (mental health) definitely plays a big role today. Some (situations) are more obvious and severe than others, but there are a lot of calls related to it,” Wood said.
Lifer and Wood were two of four law enforcement officers from Ashland County who recently participated in Crisis Intervention Team training at the Mansfield Playhouse.
CIT training is an effort by the mental health community to help law enforcement officers handle incidents involving those suffering with mental illness. This most recent round of training was the 36th class of law enforcement and first responders graduated by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Richland County and the Richland County Mental Health & Recovery Services Board.
It was the first time Lifer and Wood had participated in such training, they said.
“It will help us talk with people that are in crisis a lot easier and be able to understand where they’re coming from so we can try to prevent a use-of-force situation and make it a little bit safer for everybody,” Lifer said.
Wood agreed, saying the training helps law enforcement have a better understanding of the mental health issues that are more prevalent today.
Lifer and Wood have both been law enforcement officers for about eight years, the Ashland police officer said.
“I don’t think, for me anyway, that it’s (mental health issues) really gotten any worse or any better over those eight years. It’s more so that we’re becoming more and more knowledgeable and seeing it and understanding it a lot better,” Lifer said.
Below are photos of the 36th CIT training class participating in mental health crisis scenarios at the Mansfield Playhouse on April 24. (Credit: Hayden Gray) The story continues below.
The program focuses on the need for advanced training and specialization with first responders; immediacy of the crisis response for those with mental illness; emphasis on officer and consumer safety; and referral for those in crisis to ensure proper mental health treatment instead of incarceration, according to NAMI.
The intensive 40-hour training curriculum focuses on scenarios based on actual incidents. There is no script for the volunteer actors or law enforcement officers, simply a description of the scenario.
Other parts of the training include individual diagnosis, medications, de-escalation, civil, legal and court processes and perspectives from consumers with mental illness and their family members, according to NAMI.
More than 700 local law enforcement officers have graduated from the class since its inception.
