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As some of you know, I have been volunteering with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) for going on 13 years now. Here in New Mexico, some of our folks have developed a "panel" consisting of a couple of peers (individuals in recovery with their own mental health diagnosis) and a couple of family caregivers. Most of these folks have had run-ins at one time or another with law enforcement. Anyway, our local police (as well as other LE agencies around the state) have been inviting our panel in as part of their official Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for police officers. Based on the glowing feedback we've gotten from LE members, this part of their training is having a real impact! The idea is to allow police officers who often have to respond to calls that involve mental illness to hear first hand from peers and family members about their lived-experience. The goal is to change attitudes and reduce stigma surrounding these illnesses.
Anyway, NAMI National heard about what we are doing in NM and want to make it a national NAMI program. Myself and a couple others are working with NAMI National to develop a training curriculum (part online and part in-person) that will eventually be rolled out for all the NAMI affiliates around the country to implement. Hopefully it will be incorporated into many more police CIT trainings around the country. New Mexico is going to be a "pilot" state to implement the curriculum and test it out with police trainings here before it is rolled out nationally. As you might imagine, we are very excited about this opportunity to possibly impact, in a positive way, police training with respect to how calls are handled that involve mental health issues.
Anyway, NAMI National heard about what we are doing in NM and want to make it a national NAMI program. Myself and a couple others are working with NAMI National to develop a training curriculum (part online and part in-person) that will eventually be rolled out for all the NAMI affiliates around the country to implement. Hopefully it will be incorporated into many more police CIT trainings around the country. New Mexico is going to be a "pilot" state to implement the curriculum and test it out with police trainings here before it is rolled out nationally. As you might imagine, we are very excited about this opportunity to possibly impact, in a positive way, police training with respect to how calls are handled that involve mental health issues.