NAMI - Athens, An Affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Ohio

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Crisis Intervention Training (CIT)
/Jail Diversion

NAMI is  involved with award-winning local police trainers, the area ADAMHS Board, and other groups in holding week-long courses designed to train police officers from around Southeastern Ohio to recognize the mentally ill and take them for evaluation and treatment rather than to jail.

In early 2008, Athens' CIT program was recognized by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and NAMI Ohio as the "CIT Program of the Year."

As of November 2009, seven groups of officers - a total of 165 individuals - have passed through these courses and several hundred persons in crisis with mental illnesses have subsequently been diverted to receive evaluation and appropriate treatment. (Eighty five  to 90 % of the individuals taken by CIT-trained police to receive psychiatric evaluation turn out to have a serious mental illness.)

Much of the funding for these programs has come from grants from the local, state, and national NAMI organizations and, in both 2004 and 2009, from grants to NAMI Athens from the Athens Foundation.

Stories and pictures from CIT training efforts:

 

CIT 2008 training

CIT 2009 training

CIT 2010 training

CIT 2011 training

CIT 2011 advanced training

CIT 2012 training

 

Number of CIT officers trained: Pdf file of the number of officers trained, per geographical area, per year, from 2003 through 2012

 

Projects: Conferences & Meetings | CIT / Jail Diversion program| Ridges Cemeteries Project, | Athens Photographic Project | NAMI/Habitat Housing | Lobbying

Contact NAMI - Athens
Appalachian Behavioral Health Care, 100 Hospital Drive, Athens OH 45701
Phone: 740-593-7424   e-mail: namiathens@gmail.com