Wyoming County CIT course participants included (front, from left) Frank Miller, 911 Center; Dustin Cokely, Tunkhannock Borough Police; Mark Papi, Tunkhannock Township Police; (back) Shane McCall, Overfield Township Police; and Robert Reimiller, Tunkhannock Township Police.
Photo and story by Rick Hiduk
(Also published in the Rocket-Courier)
A 911 call about someone threatening to harm him or herself or others, with or without a weapon, triggers an automatic emotional response and an inherent stress factor very different from other calls. Responses to calls about a fire or car accident vary by incident, but the criteria for dealing with each is better established. The goal of the former is to diffuse a potentially volatile situation, the training for which has evolved dramatically in the past few decades.
A five-day training course conducted by the NEPA Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) at the Factoryville Fire Company last week provided new perspectives and additional resources for law enforcement officials, corrections officers, EMTs and those in emergency communications to better handle situations where mental illness is often the driving factor. The 40-hour course combines classroom instruction, presentations by experts in their fields, site visits, simulated experiences and mock scenarios.
“A big goal of the whole program, including the site visits, is to introduce the officers and participants to people with mental health and disabilities in a different scenario than where they might see them,” said Marie Onukiavage, executive director of the Northeast Region National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Advocacy Alliance. A tour of Keystone Community Resources in Tunkhannock, for example, provided an opportunity to “put a different face on mental illness and get the participants to see them with jobs and structure in their day.”
More times than not, Onukiavage related, interactions between those in law enforcement and people with mental health issues is when they are in crisis.
“You are probably seeing them on their worst day,” Tunkhannock Township Police Sgt. Mark Papi agreed. He credited the CIT program with giving him and his fellow officers “a better understanding of people in crisis and being empathetic about what’s going on that day.”
Onukiavich worked closely with her Luzerne Wyoming County counterpart, Magen Washilewski, to coordinate last week’s sessions, which brought in representatives from the drug & alcohol field, intellectual disabilities, children’s mental health services, and officers from the Scranton Police Department.
“I have personally found that the participants get the most out of presenters who have first-hand experience,” Washilewski suggested. “They reach class members on a level that isn’t possible through PowerPoint and informational sessions and bring an aspect of humanity and reality to those in crisis, making practical sense of an often misunderstood topic.”
“It was very enlightening as what people with mental health issues are dealing with,” said Frank Miller, Wyoming County assistant 911 director. “It could be astronomically helpful when we have callers who are suicidal or having a crisis event in general to help deescalate the situation before they (law enforcement officials) even get there.”
If 911 dispatchers can make some initial progress in reducing the tension of a situation, the job of the EMTs and police officers who arrive on the scene can be a bit easier. Those who are CIT certified, Papi related, have a better idea of how to speak with individuals with mental illness, talk them through their issues and get them the help they need.
“Our ultimate end game is to get them to help safely and without force,” Tunkhannock Borough police officer Justin Cokely concurred. Equally important, he added, the CIT course provided a new list of resources of which he was not previously aware.
“There are a ton of resources that are available to people that they probably aren’t aware of,” Papi agreed. “All you have to do is ask.”
Washilewski affirmed that connecting rural entities with mental health resources was a big part of conducting the course in Wyoming County, where three officers from rural Susquehanna County also took part in the training.
All of the participants referenced the “voices in your head” exercise held midweek as both challenging and valuable. Participants were fitted with headsets that played prerecorded soundtracks of embedded voices, while they were asked to perform routine tasks like filling out an application, working a crossword puzzle, or doing an origami.
“That really opened my eyes as to what someone with schizophrenia goes through on a daily basis, whether they are working, going to a doctor’s office or dealing with law enforcement,” Miller offered.
“Most people don’t hear voices, so you have no idea what that means and you can’t quantify it,” Papi added. “The voices would be saying different things, not only bad things, sometimes just coming across in a soft voice. It was difficult to do the tasks while this was going on in your head.”
“You had to learn to block it out, but a person with schizophrenia might not be able to do that,” said Cokely. “It was difficult.”
“These team members are making a difference,” Onukiavage said of graduates of the course. “I often get phone calls or an email who had an interaction with a CIT officer, and they are truly grateful for the difference that the training can make and the dignity that they exhibit. Officers say, ‘I see people differently than I did before.’”