MANSFIELD — A Richland County probation officer gave me the best compliment possible Friday on the stage at the Mansfield Playhouse.
“You’re good,” he said. “I felt like I was in the moment.”
That’s exactly the goal of the Crisis Intervention Team training, an effort by the mental health community to help law enforcement officers handle incidents involving those suffering with mental illness.
We want to put law enforcement officers “in the moment,” in a controlled environment before such encounters actually take place on the streets, inside homes and outside businesses.
As a community theater performer who has participated in the “final exam” of these first responders for the last several years, I consider it the most important work I do on stage, led by Doug Wertz, artistic director at the Playhouse.
In the scenario I had with the probation officer, I portrayed a Marine who served two combat tours in Afghanistan, only to return home with post-traumatic stress disorder that led to estrangement from his wife and a jail term for a violent bar fight.
His wife feared the Marine had become suicidal. She contacted law enforcement and asked for a well-being check. The two who came to “my” house did a great job with calming words, empathy and offers of assistance.
By the time the home visit ended, the Marine agreed to leave and meet with a counselor.
If the largely improv performances that we volunteer actors provide perhaps save a life — or just help officers get someone in crisis to the help they need rather than jail — the few hours we spend twice a year is worth every second.
There is no script for the actors or the law enforcement officers, merely a description of the scenario. Dialogue is all improvisational as the actors respond to the words and actions of the officers.
(Below are photos taken Friday at the Mansfield Playhouse during the final day of Crisis Intervention Training provided to area law enforcement officers through NAMI-Richland County. The photos are courtesy of Grace Riegel and Doug Wertz. The story continues below the photos.)
The actual biannual training is done during a week-long curriculum through the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Richland County and the Richland County Mental Health & Recovery Services Board.
Trainees spend one week learning about mental health diagnoses, treatments and de-escalation methods they can then practice with Playhouse actors at the end of the training. The training also emphasizes officer and consumer safety on crisis response calls.
Anyone can ask for CIT-trained officers if they need to call 9-1-1. Officers are also equipped to call social workers, protective services and mental health professionals to respond on-site.
At the end of the training all of the law enforcement officers meet at the Playhouse on a Friday morning to participate in mental health crisis scenarios — scenes we act out based on actual incidents seen by the Mansfield Police Department and the Richland County Sheriff’s Office.
Veterans suffering from PTSD. Drug addictions. Domestic anger situations. Intense fear. People with psychosis of every variety. Individuals. Married couples. Suicidal desires. One scenario after another.
Nearly 700 local law enforcement officers have graduated from the class since its inception, including nearly every active MPD officer. The graduation ceremony was the 34th.
As I looked around the theater on Friday, there were 20 law enforcement representatives from around Richland and Ashland counties, including police officers, sheriff’s deputies, dispatchers, jailers, parole officers and hospital security personnel.
All of them there because they — and their departments — believe in the mission of assisting those in need with de-escalation attempts, empathetic words and the offer of mental health counseling — not just with handcuffs, arrests and jail cells.
Actual calls involving residents in mental distress seldom end as cleanly as what usually happens on the stage of the Playhouse. No one would ever claim they did.
But the effort and thought behind the training — and the willingness of the law enforcement officers to take it seriously — may make all the difference in the world for one person one day.
That makes it worth it.