Crisis Intervention Team Data

The local Champaign County area Crisis Intervention Team Steering Committee released a report on their responses to crisis calls. What is a Crisis Intervention Team? The University of Illinois Police Department has a quick general explanation here:

As police officers are increasingly becoming the first response for people who are in a mental health crisis, departments across the country are recognizing that crisis intervention training for their officers should be a priority. More than half of the officers at the University of Illinois Police Department are specially trained in the most effective methods to help people who are dealing with some sort of mental illness, who are suicidal or who are experiencing any other similar type of crisis.

Officers are trained in how to recognize a crisis, how to speak to the person experiencing a crisis to de-escalate the situation and how to come up with a plan to help. The plan may include something very informal – like identifying and addressing a certain activity or situation that may have been contributing to a rush of anxiety – to something more formal, like setting up an appointment with the Counseling Center or bringing that person to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The work that goes into creating that kind of working application is a lot more complicated and requires the cooperation of law enforcement and service providers and local government to support and fund various parts. The report had an overview of what the organization looks like locally within the county:

In October 2012, at the Urbana City Building, members from local law enforcement agencies and the mental health community met to discuss the current law enforcement response to citizens in mental health crisis, build stronger partnerships between stakeholders, and identify resource options. The law enforcement community was represented by the Champaign County Sheriff’s Department (CCSO), Champaign Police Department (CPD), University of Illinois Police Department (UIPD), Urbana Police Department (UPD) and Champaign County State’s Attorney Office (SAO). The local mental health system was represented by area mental health providers, the local hospitals, a member of the jail task force, and other stakeholders. The group continued meeting regularly and is now recognized as the Champaign County Crisis Intervention Team Steering Committee (CITSC).

NAMI has more information for communities looking to build the relationships necessary to build such a program here. For more information on the history of Crisis Intervention Teams, NAMI has a quick overview here. The data covers the time period between August 1, 2017 and July 31, 2018. It has break downs on contacts, outcomes, time of day, day of week, gender and race. On outcomes, for example, it had this information from the first half of the year:

Figure 12. Dispositions of Suicide Threats, Attempts, and Ideations CIT Contacts, January 1, 2018 to July 31, 2018

The full report is available here. "The petition refers to petitions for involuntary commitment to the emergency rooms." I checked with the contact on the report about that to be sure. Apparently it's the law enforcement jargon from the petition form they fill out for the courts in those situations. Resolved at Scene (RAS) I understood from the presentation as successful deescalation. Everyone goes on about their lawful activities, there's no further risk of injury to self or others, etc without arrests or medical intervention.