Crisis Intervention Teams: A Frontline Response to Mental Illness in Corrections [Lesson Plans and Participant's Manual]

The tools, strategies, and techniques that will allow corrections staff, mental health service providers, and advocates to work together to develop and implement a crisis intervention team (CIT) are presented. CITs help reduce crisis situations, improve safety, and promote better outcomes for persons with mental illness. Participants will learn: about the core elements of a locally developed and owned CIT for managing mental illness in prisons, jails, and community corrections; how to develop collaborative partnerships and implement a CIT model that takes a team approach engaging community stakeholders, including corrections agencies, local mental health agencies, family advocacy groups, and others; and how to defend a CIT’s effectiveness in enhancing correctional staff’s knowledge and skills, aiding administrators in improved management and care for a special population, reducing liability and cost, improving community partnerships for increased access to resources and supports, and increasing safety for all. Overall, this training program focuses on building an agency’s capacity to implement a locally owned and administered CIT program and the training for that program. Sections of this manual include: crisis intervention teams-history, benefits, and successes; partnership and stakeholder development; organizational leadership and program sustainability; data collection and evaluation; planning and preparing for CIT training; and Program Development and Implementation Plan (PDIP).