Crisis Intervention Team

The Crisis Intervention Team is a community-based program that brings together law enforcement, mental health and recovery board, advocates, judicial entities, and people living with mental illness and their families to improve community responses to people experiencing mental health crises. CIT has 4 main goals of the program:

1. To improve safety during law enforcement encounters with people experiencing a mental health crisis, for everyone involved.
2. To increase connections to effective and timely mental health services for people in a mental health crisis.
3. To use law enforcement strategically during crisis situations, such as when there is an imminent threat to safety or a criminal concern, and increase the role of mental health professionals, peer support specialists, and other community supports.
4. To reduce the trauma that people experience during a mental health crisis and thus contribute to their long-term recovery.

CIT International’s Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Programs: a Best Practice Guide for Transforming Community Responses to Mental Health Crises.