Officers learn to diffuse mental health crisis

TOWSON, MD — About 30 correctional officers from around the state spent a week in Cumberland recently learning how to identify and diffuse mental health incidents as part of a new Crisis Intervention Team (CIT).

The training was in partnership with the National Institute of Corrections and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in a push to provide treatment for inmates with mental illness and steer them away from disciplinary restrictive housing.

The officers, which included 27 from the department and three representing Allegany, Washington, and Garrett County Detention Centers, will now go back and train fellow officers in their institutions.

“It gives people on the front line an extra tool in their tool belt to diffuse a crisis,” Warden Richard Miller of Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown said.

Much of the week-long training centered on putting officers in mental health crisis scenarios. Real actors played the role of inmates with mental illnesses and participants had to learn how to work with them. Negotiation with a person with mental illness can be delicate; and something as seemingly innocent as a single word can agitate.

“It was really intense,” said Jane Sachs, director of correctional training for the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions. “But you could see the progress the students made as the week went on.”

Dr. Ivan Walks, regional psychiatrist for the Jessup region, gave two well-received presentations, one on cultural sensitivity and the other on psychotropic medication.

“I think it’s hugely important because it allows folks to know how to do better when they come across a crisis,” Walks said. “It allows the people around you to be safer.”

Walks appreciated the blend of custody, mental health professionals and medical provider students.

“It allows us to get to know each other and work closely and comfortably with each other,” Walks said. “Custody has a different culture than mental health, who has a different culture than medical.”

When Secretary Stephen T. Moyer took over Public Safety last year he made it a priority to reduce the amount of restrictive housing imposed on inmates in the institutions. Working with the U.S. Department of Justice, Moyer intends to reduce the number of inmates in segregation to below the 4 percent national average in part by getting more inmates mental health treatment.

“It was really top-notched training,” Sachs said. “Everybody walked away thinking the week was worth it.”