Training protects both law enforcement officers and people in crisis

Through its Interagency Outreach Training Initiative program, the CPD supported crisis interventioin training for 8 years.

When people close to Utah’s Crisis Intervention Training program talk about dealing with people in a mental health crisis, they use the word “de-escalate” a lot.

De-escalation calms people in a mental health crisis, connects them with the help they need and helps resolve conflicts with minimal force.

For people with mental illness and their families, de-escalation is essential. The CPD’s Interageny Outreach Training Initiative has helped fund Crisis Intervention Training in Utah for eight years, helping officers learn techniques that help diffuse a mental health crisis.

CIT training is provided by mental health and law enforcement professionals outside the CPD, who have used the IOTI funds to educate law enforcement officers. Mental health professionals have watched the transition as CIT officers began operating in the state, and they have seen what a difference it makes.

It has been a great help to families who might otherwise hesitate to call in law enforcement for fear of making a bad situation worse. “When we can say, ‘You can call a law enforcement officer,’ it is a huge relief to them,” said Sherri Wittwer, executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill-Utah.

NAMI-Utah assists with the training and helps promote the CIT program throughout the state.

You can read more about the CIT program on the CPD's website.

Student researchers leave the biomed lab, but take their research experience with them

Eric Monson

It’s summer, but 2010 graduate Eric Monson won’t be getting much of a break. Instead he is working in a lab at the University of Iowa, beginning a course of study that will eventually earn him the title of medical scientist.

He has been accepted into the University of Iowa’s Medical Scientist Training Program, funded by the National Institutes of Health. The program pays for his tuition and also gives him a stipend. What’s more, it offers him the freedom of choosing which field to focus on. Over the next seven to eight years he will work on earning an MD and a Ph.D degree simultaneously.

So far, he’s following a similar course of study to the one he started at the Center for Persons with Disabilities, when he worked in the Biomedical Lab and was mentored by Dr. Anthony Torres. In Iowa he is taking an interdisciplinary approach to studying genetic links to autism and schizophrenia.

“In no small way, my research experience at the CPD was helpful in securing the position,” he said.

He worked in the biomedical lab for four years as an undergraduate student, from the time he was a freshman. He worked on projects investigating autism, cerebral palsy and deafness. An internship at Johns Hopkins—also set up through Dr. Anthony Ron Torres—allowed him to study schizophrenia.

“Ron allows his workers a lot of freedom,” said Andrew Vanderwerf, another student from the CPD biomedical lab who graduated this year, and who will also go on to medical school. Like Monson, he credits his lab and internship experience with helping him get into medical school and preparing him for postgraduate work.

Vanderwerf will go on to attend the Medical College of Wisconsin later this summer. He hopes to continue researching as well, studying diabetes and looking for ways to cure it.

For Monson, a lab is a happy place to be, but additional experience has taught him how to work with people in crisis. Along with his wife, Alison, he volunteered with the Community Abuse Prevention Services Agency for three years. Most of that time they were weekend shelter managers, working with clients and maintaining a 24-hour crisis line.

His background with CAPSA should help him with the next phase in his professional development—working with patients. “I’m hoping to like that, too,” he said.