The Honolulu Police Department has renewed its initiative to build mental health understanding and awareness among its officers by developing a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) within the department.
Executive Directors Heather Lusk of HHHRC and Kumi Macdonald of NAMI Hawaii serve as community co-chairs for this initiative, working with Major Mike Lambert of the HPD Training Division to coordinate and provide the 40 hours of officer certification training. 15 HPD officers were certified in September and another class is planned for January.
Along with Heather, HHHRC team members JP Moses, Natalia Werkoff, Robin Zeller and Andy Staley helped to provide training in the September session. HPD plans to build their CIT group to 200 officers and certify 400 officers in Mental Health First Aid in the next two years.
Subject matter experts interested in helping to provide training on different mental health topics are invited to attend the January session as part of their own preparation and contact Heather.
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