Nurstead Consulting Services’ Mental Health for Law Enforcement training is specially designed to address the challenges law enforcement faces when interacting with an individual suffering from mental illness. Two versions of this training exists an 8-hour Crisis Intervention Training and the full 40-hour Advance Crisis Intervention Training.
“The 8-hour was different than the same replayed trainings I have attended. More mental health to help drive the response was a far improved approach to the trainings.”
What does the training look like?
Nurstead Consulting Services consultants provide three 8-hour mental health educational classes designed specifically for law enforcement officers, probation, and those in the criminal justice system. The 8-hour class is generally provided to all officers in an agency and 3 identical classes are taught to allow all officers to attend at different times to ensure coverage in the field. The focus of the 8-hour class is to assist those in the criminal justice system with gaining an understanding of mental health and substance use to allow them to recognize situations encountered in the course of their work where mental health issues rather than criminal intent are present. Additionally, the 8-hour class will provide de-escalation training specific to interacting with individuals who have mental health symptom presentation in criminal justice system interactions.
The 40-hour Advanced Crisis Intervention Training is generally provided to a smaller number of officers in a department, though many departments seek to get all officer trained at this level, builds upon the 8-hour class with the idea in place that at any given time an officer with the 40-hour training is available when needed. The 40-hour course leads to a much deeper understanding of mental health, substance abuse, and crisis response, and crisis de-escalation. Officers who attend this training will learn to identify different mental illness and intervention techniques to better respond to escalated on-scene situations related to mental health.
These two items paired together will give an in-depth foundation to improve the relations with individuals in the community who experience mental health challenges and also reduce the number of arrests and detentions for individuals where interactions with law enforcement occur, but there is no criminal intent present.
“They gave the best training our staff has ever experienced. Law Enforcement needs to be as up to date as possible on psychology and their knowledge of the intersection of criminality and psychology was top notch.“
What are the benefits of these trainings?
- Gives officers more tools to do their job safely and effectively. Research shows mental health training improved officer attitude and knowledge about mental illness. In Memphis, for example, training resulted in an 80% reduction of officer injuries during mental health crisis calls.
- Keeps law enforcement’s focus on crime. Reduces the amount of time officers spend on mental health calls and reduces the amount of time spent completing paperwork.
- Reduces the costs, resource utilization, and time spent by corrections to process and hold individuals with mental health issues. For example, in Detroit an inmate with mental illness in jail costs $31,000 a year, while community-based mental health treatment costs only $10,000 a year.
New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Course Number: NM230288
