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Respect Day raises awareness of mental health issues
Nevada Daily Mail
The theme of Wednesday's second annual Respect Day emphasized overcoming mental health issues, especially depression.
"Depression is a terrible thing," Chief Graham Burnley said. "I was told by a consumer one time that you will never understand depression is like being in a deep, dark hole unless you've actually had depression. Unfortunately, though those episodes may be temporary, they may have lasting effects forever by an act of suicide. We like to think maybe we can greatly help people understand that's not the option they have to take. There are other options. One of the ways we help the community is through CIT."
Respect Day began as an event to promote mental health awareness and networking by the Crisis Intervention Team last year. CIT is a law enforcement initiative, implemented in collaboration with mental health and emergency medicine organizations, that recruit, train and support police officers to respond effectively when individuals are experiencing acute psychiatric distress, according to the police department.
This year's Respect Day included RESPECT Institute of Missouri speakers, presentations by Healthy Nevada, Heartland Behavioral Health, Celebrate Recovery and Mental Health Court and a question and answer session held by a panel of mental health professionals. Poster contest entries decorated the community center's wall with the theme kindness, dignity, self-esteem, character, value, self-worth, wellness and respect in relation to promoting mental health wellness.
The RESPECT Institute speakers offered insight into the ways general attitudes may affect the success or failure of the lives of people who face mental illnesses through sharing their own personal stories, according to its website.
"I've been a policeman for 40 years, and 39 years ago, the police handled mental health situations differently," Burnley said. "It is a different world. The state hospital system was available to us. We would find someone in a crisis on the street, we would transport them to the state hospital and they would go behind the doors. Problem solved. Police department's problem solved. But those resources went away as we all know. Is jail the best option? Probably not. I don't want to put someone into the jail system with a mental illness and have them become a victim while incarcerated. CIT taught me about a lot of options."
He said the most important aspects of CIT are community involvement and partnership.
"For instance, if I have an issue at the emergency room at the hospital, I get on the phone and call my colleagues. If the public administrator has an issue, she knows who to call. If someone at On My Own has an issue, they know who to call. We work together very well in partnership. I will never claim that we are going to solve every problem. The police officers are not psychologists, but the officers who come back from CIT training come back fundamentally changed. They now know that there are other options; there's ways of doing business that doesn't mean force or jail. This is a way of doing business that could be very effective and make the community safer for everyone."
Mayor pro-tem Jayne Novak read a proclamation during the event crediting CIT with assisting people diagnosed with mental illness in crisis situations receive the appropriate professional assistance they need on their journey to recovery, encouraging positive law enforcement interventions among citizens experiencing crisis and decreasing the number of people diagnosed with mental illness who are placed in correctional facilities unnecessarily.
"I Jayne Novak, mayor pro-tem, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014, Crisis Intervention Team Respect Day in Nevada and encourage all citizens, agencies and organizations committed to meeting mental health needs to unite and increase public awareness and understanding about mental health," she said.