Spokane police host crisis-intervention training to prepare for mental health calls; 'It makes it much more real'
Spokesman-ReviewJul 21, 2021
Jul. 21—Officers tested their de-escalation tactics during mock scenarios that replicated mental health calls during a crisis intervention training program put on by the
The department started these trainings about 20 years ago, and continues to change scenarios to fit modern understanding of mental illness and substance abuse, said Sgt.
"We bring in actors to where they're able to try to put into use what they've learned by showing empathy to those individuals in crisis," Kernkamp said.
The actors came from
Trainees ranged from first-year cadets to longtime patrol officers from the
"It's always evolving, so you have to be able to recognize those struggles that we maybe didn't know about a few decades ago," Neale said.
Neale took part in a scenario in which a Frontier professional acted as a veteran experiencing post-traumatic stress and combat flashbacks.
"Mental health calls happen really regularly, they're probably some of most frequent calls we get, so this is very accurate to what I've seen," Neale said.
For
"You can look at something like that on paper and it's kind of like, 'whatever,' but then you see it here and it makes it much more real," Baxter said.
Kernkamp said
The scenarios are meant to show trainees how to handle a dangerous situation not through direct confrontation or forceful arrests, but by offering substance abuse disorder counseling or a detox, Kernkamp said.
"A large portion of our calls for service are generated by behavioral health issues of individuals in crisis where they have increased emotion and decreased reasoning, based upon either drug-induced or alcohol-induced, or both," Kernkamp said. "If we can have a safe outcome, that's a win for everybody ... Unfortunately, it's not always going to end that way. And we are here to enforce the law."
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