The Office of Community Corrections in the Division of Criminal Justice hosted a unique Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) Training session in June for stakeholders in the community corrections industry supporting Colorado’s community.
The CIT program is a community-based partnership of law enforcement personnel, mental health professionals and individuals experiencing mental illness and/or addiction disorders. The group worked alongside partners with a shared commitment to improve response times to a crisis. CIT programs are typically known for training officers, this event was customized to improve collaborative partnerships and services in targeted areas in Colorado communities.
The 3-day tailored training session provided professional development to Colorado Community Corrections staff. The training offered hands-on skills to better assess the needs of high-risk and high-needs clients living within community-based residential facilities who may be experiencing crisis.
Stakeholders from statewide community corrections agencies were presented with opportunities to attend interactive scenarios, sessions and discussions with trained actors reenacting incidents designed to illustrate real-life crisis in day-to-day workplaces covering the following topics:
- verbal de-escalation
- mood and psychological disorders
- suicide prevention
- vicarious trauma, and
- interactive crisis intervention.
(Crisis intervention is an immediate and short-term psychological care approach aimed at assisting individuals in a crisis situation in order to restore social balance to the situation and minimize the potential for long-term psychological trauma.)
Each CIT training also included a partial lecture-based learning to help build a foundational knowledge of various mental health and crisis related challenges clients. The real-life scenarios were customized using a traditional CIT model and targeted toward a community-corrections setting. Participants received individualized coaching and feedback from nationally recognized CIT coaches for professional development.
Participants from sixteen programs withing the community corrections field participated, each graduated with a CIT certification.
Collaborating facilitators included Jeff Santelli of J.C., Santelli Training and Consulting, LLC and Dr. Christopher J. Morley PsyD of Delta Counseling & Consulting and the Office of Community Corrections.
To learn more about the Office of Community Corrections and or to partner with our office, visit us online.