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���������� Note: As NYS officials launched an 8 county + ���������� City Crisis Intervention Training initiative yesterday in Albany (see attached photo) that’s funded from last year’s legislative allocation, advocates are working to get money in this year’s budget to extend assistance to those teams in the coming year and to create several more.

Yesterday’s kick off featured remarks from officials from the NYS Office of Mental Health and Division of Criminal Justice Services, project lead Don Kamin from the newly formed Institute for Police, Mental Health and Community Collaboration and one of the nation’s greatest champions for CIT, ret. Memphis police Major Sam Cochrane who helped originate the program. Reps from NAMI, ���������� and MHANYS greeted the group as well.

Advocates are hopeful that we’ll see some additional CIT funding in the soon to be released one house FY 2015-16 budget bills.

In addition, ���������� and MHANYS are working closely together to drum up support for a bill that we’ve generated that would prospectively grant Medicaid status to ����������ers with behavioral health conditions who are leaving prisons and jails. Such an initiative would help assure they get connected with community services and supports that could also help them avoid all to frequent re-incarcerations in the critical few days after discharge. Stay tuned!

By����Capital ���������� ��March 10, 2015

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“Crisis intervention training” programs were launched Monday in eight upstate communities, marking the beginning of an experiment��that trains police and mental health officials to handle the growing number of emotionally disturbed people in ����������’s jails and prisons.

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Crisis intervention training received $400,000 in one-time funding in last year’s budget. But advocates say the money should be available annually, increased to $1 million a year and expanded to cover an additional eight counties, and they argue that crisis intervention is only one piece of what’s needed to improve mental health services for the prison population.

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Advocates are also seeking a sponsor for a bill that would require correctional facilities to automatically enroll former prisoners in Medicaid once they are released.

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That “presumptive eligibility” means former prisoners’ access to services will be immediate, rather than taking the four to six weeks it typically takes for Medicaid coverage to be approved, said Glenn Liebman, C.E.O. of the Mental Health Association of ���������� State. “That enhances the ability to engage more quickly with outside mental health services. The longer someone’s not linked with services, the percentage of recidivism is much higher.”

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The push comes amid increased attention on the mentally ill in ����������’s jails and prisons.

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Last year, ���������� City mayor Bill de Blasio report that laid out a $130 million spending plan for how the city plans to keep people with mental illness and substance abuse problems out of the prison system.

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De Blasio’s report found the percentage of mentally ill people in ���������� City jails had increased to 38 percent by 2014, up from 29 percent just four years earlier.

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Slightly more than 400 mentally ill individuals make up the group of people most frequently returning to ���������� City jails—the same 400 people had been incarcerated an average of 18 times each over the last five year period, the report said.

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Among the many recommendations in the task force report was a call to give additional training to NYPD officers to deal with the emotionally disturbed people they encounter.

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Many states already have crisis intervention training programs, but until this year, only three police departments statewide, in Nassau, Monroe and Westchester counties, provided training for officers on interacting with the mentally ill.

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The $400,000 budget allocation last year funded programs in Auburn, Binghamton, Clarkstown, Hempstead, Newburgh, St. Lawrence County, Syracuse and Utica. But that money will eventually run out.

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A new allocation would underwrite the costs of expanding the training program to eight new locations, and pay for 40 hours of mental health training for police officers in those counties, as well as follow-up support, both in person and by phone, for the mentally ill people they come into contact with.

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