Mental Health

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.

Compass Health in Warrensburg offers services for Behavioral Health and Substance Use Disorders including counseling, psychiatry, psychological assessments for children and the Substance Awareness Traffic Offender Program.

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) is a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the United States.

Call or send a text to 988 or Chat online https://988lifeline.org/contact-the-lifeline/

Teen Line – For Teens By Teens

• Website
• U.S.: 310-855-4673
• U.S. and Canada: 800-852-8336
• TEXT: TEEN to 839863
• View Message Board https://teenlineonline.org/board/

Warmlines

Warmlines are like hotlines in that they are free, peer-run phone lines that connect callers to clinically supervised and trained mental health advocates who provide emotional support. They are intended to make an early intervention approach to alleviating struggle via support and care, while hotlines are more often used to manage an existing crisis. 

• Compassionate Ear 866-927-6327
• NAMI 800-374-2138

Crisis Intervention Training

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) is an innovative first-responder model of law enforcement-based crisis intervention with community, healthcare, and advocacy partnerships. This CIT POST approved training course focusing on training the basic assessment skills for effectively handling incidents involving individuals in a behavioral health crisis. CIT training improves the safety of law enforcement, individuals, family members and citizens within the community. 

Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for Telecommunicators provides call takers and dispatchers with the knowledge and skills necessary to recognize a CIT call and how to respond effectively to persons in mental health crisis or with substance use issues, and to work more efficiently with law enforcement, first responders, and other criminal justice personnel responding to persons in mental health crisis and/or with substance use issues. This training is conducted under the instructional supervision of local CIT trained professionals including police officers, mental health professionals, consumers, and family advocates.

The CIT for Telecommunicators curriculum is recommended for all emergency call takers, dispatchers, and their supervisors and is a Missouri POST approved credit of 24-hours of training that addresses critical telecommunications-specific topics. 

Overview of CIT 

• Understanding Mental Health Disorders
• Child & Youth Interventions
• Co-Occurring Disorders
• De-Escalation: Responding to Individuals in a Mental Health Crisis
• Intellectual Disabilities
• Alzheimer’s Disease and Aging Interventions
• Recognizing Warning Signs of Suicide and Self Harm
• Building Resiliency: Surviving Secondary Trauma (BRSST)
• Intel Gathering for CIT Reports and Use of Premise Alerts
• System Coordination and Community Resources
• Scenario-Based Training
• Consumer and Family Panel
• Certification Exam & Graduation

Emergency Telecommunicators are the first responders of critical incidents and often the first contact with a person during a crisis. Callers can be in extreme physiological distress, experiencing sensory overload that creates a confused state and constructed thinking. Many times, these calls are for barricaded individuals, people living with a mental illness, suicidal persons, domestic violence situations or even hostage situations. Telecommunicators must be mentally prepared to handle these incidents, to make decisions quickly and allocate resources efficiently. Their words and actions will likely set the tone for the remainder of the call.

Emergency Telecommunicators area critical link in the CIT program and may include call takers and dispatchers. The success of CIT depends on their familiarity with the CIT program, knowledge of how to recognize a CIT call involving a behavioral crisis event, and the appropriate questions to ask to ascertain information from the caller that will help the responding CIT Officers.

This course is designed to teach and support Telecommunicators with effective communications skills to not only get the needed information from the caller but also teach them how to use verbal communications skills to lower emotions and de-escalate the situation. This will aid in making the scene safer for your emergency responders, with the goal of a peaceful resolution.