(Cleveland)- Several White County Sheriff’s Department officers recently underwent Crisis Intervention training. Daren Welborn, White County Sheriff’s Office Training Certification Manager said in an email, the training provided information on how to deal with subjects who are dealing with a mental crisis, or illness.
Those that attended were taught how to communicate with these types of subjects and decide what kind of resources would best help them. The purpose for the training was to help keep people out of jail who really don’t need to be there.
The 40 hours of training was provided by an instructor with the Georgia Public Safety Training Center and not only included classroom hours but officers traveled to several mental health providers in the area to best understand how the providers assisted in dealing with mental illness.
According to Welborn, instead of having to use force to deal with these subjects the students learned how to deescalate a situation through communication and better understand what that person is going through to better assist them in receiving the proper help needed.
White County Sheriff Neal Walden said, ” This allows the sheriff’s office to have at least one person per shift on duty to be able to assist in dealing with subjects in a crisis.”
Ten White County officers, six mandated deputies and four detention officers attended the class as well as officers and officials from other counties.
