CIT participants receive certificates in graduation ceremony
DENMARK, Tenn. — The Crisis Intervention Team held their graduation ceremony in Denmark today, May 24.
The Crisis Intervention Team program held training on specifics such as active listening and physical mannerisms.
After 40 hours worth of learning and testing, these participants now have the tools they need to actively serve the community.
“Our training was on active listening, on self help and well-being. Autism, especially with so much that we see and with it being Mental Health Month. We see so much about the autism spectrum, Down Syndrome, just all the intellectual differences. And we trained these officers on how to recognize it,” said Tom Grant, CIT coordinator and deputy for the Madison County Sheriff’s Office.
He stated that there are three partners in a CIT program: law enforcement, mental health agencies, and mental health advocates.
“Take a breath, take a moment. Because the seconds that you’re walking up on this situation, which could go either direction real quick, is just how I can tell that this is something mental. So I can take a breath and approach that person differently. Not quite as controlling, not quite as official,” said Grant.
Each graduate received a certificate and a pen with the CIT seal on it.
“When we started our program, we were 10 counties. Now we’re overall 21 counties in West Tennessee. We’re recognized by CIT International and so that’s why we have our delegates from the Bahamas here learning our technique, our program, so that they can take it back to their corrections agencies and license the agency of immigration,” said Grant.
The national flag of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas was given to Grant.
The Bahamas delegates also gave license plates made by immigrants to some CIT participants.
“We’re living with either ourselves or family members of everything that we teach these participants. I feel that really separates us from other programs,” said Grant.
Grant stated that participants also completed a questionnaire to rate the training division on how they taught them.
Grant stated that they will train EMS and all city fire departments this summer.
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