Get to know stakeholders
It is essential to get to know the law enforcement agencies, mental health providers and mental health advocates in your community. At this stage, it's appropriate to have informal conversations with individuals or small groups. An exploratory discussion can help break the ice and build goodwill, setting the stage for future partnerships.
At this point, your conversations should focus on understanding your potential partners' perspectives on the crisis response system. You should be listening, not trying to sell CIT. Having a dialogue with these key stakeholders about the community's response to mental health crises helps to expose common interests and concerns. Remember that your potential partners will have varied needs and interests. Asking these stakeholders to share their concerns and listening carefully to their responses is very helpful: whether or not you all agree, people can only work together productively when they can share their perspectives. After listening, try to make a convincing case that these concerns overlap and working together can be beneficial for everyone.
Perspectives: Often stakeholders will have serious challenges with the way that the current mental health crisis response system works. For example, law enforcement agencies may be frustrated that officers spend many hours at emergency rooms waiting to transfer an individual in crisis to mental health services. Conversely, emergency rooms or other crisis service providers may be overwhelmed by a high volume of individuals in crisis. It's important to encourage a frank, respectful conversation that reveals these serious challenges. An attitude of respect and a good faith effort to work together will start your partnership off on the right foot.
It is also important to be flexible about your expectations, because the pathway to developing CIT will change and grow depending on the needs of partner organizations.
Resources
NAMI: Responding to Youth with Mental Health Needs: A CIT for Youth Implementation Manual (Step 1)
The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin : Responding to Persons with Mental Illness
University of Memphis CIT Center: Crisis Intervention Team Core Elements (page 5)
University of Memphis CIT Center: Crisis Intervention Team Core Elements,(pages 5-8)