The Portage County Police Chiefs Association and county Mental Health & Recovery Board recently bestowed the 2024 Crisis Intervention Team honors on three local officers, one dispatcher and a police department employee.
Honored as CIT Officers of the Year were Ravenna Ptl. Zach Milush and Streetsboro Officer Scott Hermon. CIT Champions of the Year were Aurora Lt. Andrew Lumpkins
and Kent Police Department co-CIT coordinator Abigail Watkins. Receiving the CIT Dispatcher of the Year award was Haley Firtik of the Streetsboro Police Department.
- Zach Milush: Sent to Coleman Health Services’ crisis center in April, Milush found himself assisting a man who had life-threatening, self-inflicted lacerations on his arms. Having undergone CIT training in 2022, Milush was able to remain calm and show compassion while rendering life saving measures until paramedics arrived.
- Scott Herman: Using CIT training he obtained in 2007, Herman was honored for responding to several calls involving people with dementia. Herman’s training enables him to communicate with the people, de-escalating their uncertainty and confusion to the point where they feel they can trust him to care for them and get them somewhere safe.
- Andrew Lumpkins: CIT-trained in 2007, Lumpkins is Aurora’s CIT coordinator. As such, he teaches others how to best communicate with people in distress, make sure CIT calls are properly documented and sits on the Experienced CIT Officer Panel during training.
- Abigail Watkins: A 2021 CIT graduate, she is a juvenile counselor for the Kent Police Department. She is also KPD’s co-CIT coordinator with Officer Jim Fuller. Watkins reviews CIT-related calls, checks to ensure that documentation is complete and works effectively with children and adults experiencing mental health issues. She works extensively with youth attending the Kent City Schools.
- Haley Firtik: Having received a call from a male who reportedly felt hopeless and needed help, Firtik looked up resources and gave him the information. She then dispatched a Streetsboro CIT officer to locate the man and ensure that he was all right and did not need further assistance. Firtik also volunteers her time for CIT trainings, including serving as an actor for real-world scenarios that are a part of each session.
The need for CIT officers stems from sobering statistics.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in five Ohioans experiences mental illness each year, and almost two million Ohio adults have a diagnosed mental health condition. Additionally, almost 62% of teenagers diagnosed with depression received no care in the past year.
Fully 25% of people with serious mental illness have been arrested, and about 40% of jailed adults have a history of mental illness. Seven of every 10 youths in the juvenile justice system have mental health conditions, NAMI’s literature states.
To combat the pressure on prisons, jails and juvenile justice systems, agencies across the country are starting to provide CIT training. Locally, the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County provides free CIT training to police, fire, EMS, probation officers, dispatchers, case managers and other first responders who work with the public.
Every police department in Portage County has CIT-trained officers, and most have the majority of their officers with at least one training under their belt, said Gina Dufour, MH&RB CIT coordinator. The board will soon revamp its CIT refresher and advanced CIT training programs, though no dates are set, she said.
According to NAMI, even basic CIT training translates to reduced arrests of people with mental illness, keeping people out of jail and in treatment. Armed with more knowledge about mental illness, CIT-trained officers also spend less time responding to mental health calls and have a better attitude while they are engaged with the people involved, NAMI’s research states.
So far this year, the Portage County Mental Health & Recovery Board has tallied 458 CIT calls, 259 of which resulted in referrals to the CIT Mental Health Outreach Program, Dufour said. That means a Coleman employee followed up with the person to provide information about available programs and services.
Dufour said all police officers in the county, not just CIT officers, are able to refer people who do not need immediate mental health evaluations to Coleman’s mental health outreach program, where they can be linked to any number of services.
To settle on annual honorees, the board sends nomination forms to every police department in the county, collects the responses and submits them to the county Police Chiefs Association. They determine the honorees and inform the MH&RB, which presents the awards.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.