This is a monthly discussion in which the committee reviews and makes recommendations for mental health and alcohol or other drug (AOD) training for all Cleveland law enforcement officers and personnel, as well as advises on specialized Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training.

Carole Ballard opens the meeting, introducing the agenda and passing it on to Lt. John Mullin. He introduces the 2023 In-Service Training Update and the SCIT Update, explaining how many officers went through different types of training in 2023.

58 out of 89 field training officers have completed this training as of December 1, 2023. That's 65.1%. For 2024, these trainings will be in April, August, and December.

Moving to updates on dispatch materials. They have gone through the training committees and are planning to equip dispatchers with the new material in 2024.

For the in-service training beginning in 2024, it is slated to begin in May 2024. Trauma-informed care was chosen by the MHRAC and they will be sending out a slideshow on this material for MHRAC members to review. They have a subcommittee to work on this material as well.

Currently, these slides are not for public dissemination, but rather for MHRAC members to offer their notes/feedback. They plan to use slides and videos in this 3.5-hour training, which Ballard noted is not the only trauma training officers will receive.

Other folks in attendance at this meeting are Carmen Gandarilla, ADAMHS Board; Lt. John Mullin, Cleveland Division of Police--Crisis Intervention Team Coordinator; Patience Dorsey, Dispatcher; Ruth Simara, NEOMED; Loh, Homeless Congress; Brian Siggers, Cleveland Municipal Court.

Other folks in attendance are Cassey Fye, NAMI Greater Cleveland; Hannah Macias, Cleveland Police Accountability Team; Angela Cecys, CDPH; Doug Nichols, ADAMHS Board; Sgt. Maggie Crespo, Cleveland Police Department; Rick Oliver, FrontLine Service.

Sgt. Crespo asks, "Will we involve scenarios in the training?" Ballard responds that this is something they are hoping to incorporate. Other folks weigh in on vicarious trauma and how to better equip officers in dealing with people in crisis.

There are around 84 slides in this presentation. They are hoping for folks to review the presentation and give it to Ballard by next Thursday, December 21st.

The last agenda item for today is SCIT Annual Training-Update on Topic and Subject Matter Expert and Next Steps-meeting with subject expert. Siggers is excited about sharing this information with the Cleveland municipal court system as well.

Another speaker, Acecys, from the Cleveland Public Health Department notes that as a community, we need to talk more about personality disorders and address different types of trauma/responses.

Loh brings up how mental health intersects with policing and homelessness in different ways, bringing up that sending people to the shelter isn't always the best option. They name that police officers here can really benefit from this training.

Discussion around diversion, mental health, trauma responses, and police training has continued for the past 10 minutes. Lots of folks have shared wanting to know more. Ballard thanks folks for their comments and encourages more reviews of the trauma slideshow she presented.

And with that at 1:45 PM the MHRAC meeting concludes. Stay tuned for the next meeting, next year!

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@cledocumenters Just to clarify, this was an MHRAC Training Subcommittee meeting, not the full MHRAC committee meeting!