Chattanooga State Community College will be hosting the graduation for the sixth class of the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT)-Trained Law Enforcement Officers on Friday, at 3 p.m. It will be held at the Health & Science Building in room 1038. Parkridge Valley CEO Brennan Francois will be the speaker at the ceremony.
The Crisis Intervention Team is a joint endeavor of the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office and the City of Chattanooga Police Department. CIT training is designed to help ensure law enforcement awareness of mental health resources and to address attitudes and stigma regarding mental illness. The CIT curriculum is delivered over a 40-hour week of intensive training provided by volunteer mental health professionals, advocates, and CIT trained law enforcement officers. Law enforcement professionals from multiple agencies have completed the CIT program and returned to their communities to train other personnel on how to identify and intervene in situations where an individual is dealing with a mental health crisis.
Participants for the sixth session of the CIT training included representatives from the Chattanooga Police Department, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, Lookout and Signal Mountain Police, the Chattanooga State and UTC campus police, Lauderdale County Mississippi Sheriff’s Department, Meridian Mississippi Police Department and the VA Law Enforcement Center, Little Rock, Ark.
For more information, contact Monica Middlebrooks, CIT manager at the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, at 893-3503.