Crisis Intervention Training expands to eight additional counties.

We honored that the state recently awarded Volunteer as part of a new grant, to expand CIT services.

TDMHSAS announces new grant to expand Crisis
Intervention Team Programs in Tennessee | Grant will
bring new training and techniques to eight primarily
rural counties.
The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Services (TDMHSAS), Department of Correction, and National Alliance
on Mental Illness (NAMI) Tennessee announced today a new grant
that will expand Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training and techniques
to eight new counties. The expansion is focusing on Sumner, Wilson,
Smith, DeKalb, White, Putnam, Overton, and Cumberland Counties.
CIT is a specialized, 40-hour training for law enforcement officers, and
in conjunction with robust community partnerships, the goal is to
improve outcomes of encounters with people living with behavioral
health challenges. This three year, $660,000 grant from the U.S.
Department of Justice will take the lessons learned from a statewide
study of CIT in Tennessee and implement them in this 8-county area.
“Crisis Intervention Team is a truly homegrown, Memphis, Tennessee
model for improving outcomes for both law enforcement and people
experiencing a mental health crisis. CIT’s success across the nation and
around the world is a true testament to its effectiveness, and we are
excited to use this funding to expand the model to more communities
in our state,” said TDMHSAS Commissioner Marie Williams, LCSW.
“With our CIT in Tennessee statewide task force, we found that smaller, rural jurisdictions were interested and could benefit from CIT,
but they lacked the resources to take that next step,” said Lisa Ragan,
MSSW, TDMHSAS Director of Consumer Affairs and Peer Recovery
Services. “With the regional design of this approach, we are going to
leverage interagency relationships and the experience of the task force
to create better outcomes for everyone involved.”
Implementation of this grant comes in partnership with behavioral
health and crisis services provider Volunteer Behavioral Health Care
System. The University of Memphis will be providing monitoring and
evaluation services for the grant.
The implementation of the CIT model began in Memphis in Since then, it has spread to 18 of Tennessee’s 95 counties. The
co-chair of CIT International, retired Memphis Police Major Sam
Cochran, continues to serve a key role on the CIT in Tennessee
Taskforce and will provide consultation and training in the expansion
project.