Sometimes it requires some creativity to implement CIT in rural areas. Many rural areas may be under the auspices of different law enforcement agencies. In Connecticut, some of our rural areas have towns with small police departments while neighboring areas may be under the jurisdiction of the State Police.
The local mental health authority can partner with several agencies at a time in rural areas. It may be more difficult to identify drop off centers in large rural areas, but the local mental health authority overseeing those areas can partner with police to create a response that helps the person with mental illness receive the services they need. It may require bringing a person to a hospital and notifying the mental health authority to follow up so the person doesn’t fall through the cracks of our fractured mental health system. In most cases a simple call to the local mental health authority can set the wheels in motion to provide immediate and long term services to the person without hospitalization.
CIT officers can also be trained on a regional basis along with the mental health partners they will be working with. This helps to initiate networking and relationship building. Because many of our departments are small, we train on a regional basis quite often. It also sets up opportunities for police departments to work together to help each other out in a “mutual aid” framework.
The beauty of CIT is that the core elements of the program can be implemented in a variety of settings with patience and creativity. They key is to bring all of your stakeholders to the table to come up with a plan that works.