Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Marin County
Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) programs are community-based programs that bring together law enforcement, mental health professionals, mental health advocates (people living mental illness and their families), and other partners to improve community responses to mental health crises.
Started in Memphis in 1988 with support from the local NAMI affiliate its goals are to:
- improve safety of everyone involved in behavioral health crisis.
- increase connections to local resources for those in mental health crisis.
- encourage strategic use of law enforcement particularly when there is an imminent threat to safety or a criminal concern and encourage activation of community response agencies when suitable.
- reduce the trauma people experience in a mental health crisis with strategies such as CIT training for local law enforcement and ongoing refresher courses.
For over twenty years, the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) in Marin has been a community partnership program whose core members are the County of Marin Health and Human Services Department, the Marin County Sheriff Department, the local NAMI affiliate in Marin, and the surrounding twelve law enforcement jurisdictions. This partnership is also supported by specialized crisis response programs such as the SAFE Team, jail mental health, County Probation, APS/CFS, local mental health professionals, and justice partners from Marin and local Bay Area counties.
Major Sam Cochran (ret), seen as one of the original founders of the program, said in his preface in a CIT publication titled: Relationships Are the Secret to Success:
The goal of CIT is to keep people safe and that is not possible if jail is the only destination during a mental health crisis. A CIT program should help people get connected to treatment and services and offer hope for recovery. That can only be accomplished when law enforcement agencies build relationships with mental health professionals and agencies and work with advocates to fight for a better mental health system.
Research also shows that communities that prescribe to the CIT Program model, have higher success rates in resolving serious crisis situations. Click here to watch a video on What CIT and best practices from CIT International are: (https://vimeo.com/533695447). Want to learn more? Read the full research article on the Crisis Intervention Team Model.
In 2024, HHS hired the newly created position of a full-time CIT Coordinator. The coordinator oversees the biannual CIT training, CIT refresher courses, the Critical Incident Response Team and provides liaison and support between law enforcement and BHRS. The role launched in 2024.
To align with the Marin County Health & Human Services (HHS) Strategic Plan to Achieve Health & Wellness Equity the role will liaison between law enforcement, mental health professionals, and community members, and their primary responsibility is to ensure that individuals experiencing a mental health crisis receive appropriate care and support.
The County of Marin BHRS Division and Criminal Justice partners, as part of the Stepping Up Initiative, have utilized the Sequential Intercept Model as a tool to identify and guide opportunities to intervene in cases involving persons with behavioral health conditions being arrested and incarcerated. The work of the CIT Coordinator intercepts primarily at Intercepts 0 and 1.
Sequential Intercept Model
