As a social worker in Central Maine, I realize that people with mental illness face stigma and discrimination daily. However I was shocked to learn that 42 percent of people shot by Maine police since 2000 — and 58 percent of those who died as a result — had mental health problems. Now is the time to contact our legislators in support of LD534, a bill to expand mental health crisis training to all Maine police departments.

Budget cuts and lack of funding for adequate community health services have unintentionally shifted the burden of care for mentally ill Mainers onto law enforcement. In all fairness, Police officers are traditionally trained to use force and intimidation to restrain criminals but this approach often intensifies circumstances involving psychotic persons. When misinterpreting the actions of individuals with mental illness the outcome can be disastrous if the responding officers are not properly trained for crisis intervention and/or mental health first aid.

The Memphis Model of Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) was created in 1987 when a man with serious mental illness was tragically shot and killed by police after his mother had called them for assistance because her son had been cutting himself with a knife. The 40- hour training provided by NAMI teaches first responders to recognize the signs of mental illness and to employ techniques to de-escalate potentially volatile situations. The goal of CIT is safety: for the community, the law enforcement officer and the person in crisis. Not only does the program promote safety for all involved, it also links the person in crisis to services in the community whenever possible.

Unfortunately, mentally ill people, their families and loved ones are forced to deal with complicated legal predicaments or worse because as a society, we lack any basic understanding about the population. We can actively reduce stigma through education and this can start with CIT training and mental health first aid for law enforcement and first responders, saving precious lives. The law enforcement community can ignite this change and be the example from which we all learn.

Rep. Richard Malaby from Hancock has presented a proposal (LD534) to increase CIT training to at least 20 percent of the law enforcement officers in Maine by 2017. Many departments have surpassed 20 percent such as Portland where every officer has completed the CIT training. In contrast, the State Police who have been involved with the most shootings since 1990 admit that only about 11 percent of officers are CIT trained at this time. State Police have cited lack of funds to pay officers while training. NAMI Maine provides the training with funds provided by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) but does not cover officer’s salaries while attending CIT. Some smaller rural departments who have not taken part in any of the trainings claim that issues involving mental illness are rare in their town, more of a community service type of thing and feel that CIT is unnecessary. Statistics provided by The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) revealed that as of 2014, approximately 1 in 4 American adults experience mental illness in a given year. This translates to 61.5 million people; only 22 million will seek treatment, 38 million will not! Twenty-five percent of adults is about 266,000 Mainers. Sounds like the need for training might be too costly to ignore. Now is the time to get involved and contact our legislators in support of LD534, a bill to expand mental health crisis training to all Maine Police Departments.

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Christine H. Currie is a social worker. She lives in Winthrop.