Crisis Intervention Training for LEO  

Sheriff Wendell Hall and his agency hosted the 3rd Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training class for the Northwest Florida CIT Joint Task Force during the week of March 26, 2007. The members of the taskforce include the: Santa Rosa Sheriff's Office, Escambia County Sheriff's Office, Pensacola Police Department, Pensacola Junior College Police Department, University of West Florida Police Department, Milton Police Department, NAS Whiting Field Security Personnel and the Escambia Department of Community Corrections. The week long training class was held at the Milton Community Center and consisted of forty (40) hours of classroom instruction in addition to visits to various mental health agencies in the area. By weeks end, the taskforce had the honor of graduating forty-one (41) officers. The purpose of CIT training is to create community partnerships between law enforcement, judicial officers, local mental health agencies and its members. The focus of the training is to better train those officers in the field who respond to a crisis involving individuals who suffer from mental illness. The goal is to have a specially trained officer who can provide the most effective and compassionate response possible.