Crisis Intervention First Look: Focused Response for Youth

Course Overview: Crisis Intervention First Look: Focused Response for Youth, an eLearning course, offers insights and practical guidance on the applicability of Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) for the youth population. As children and teens confront startling rates of psychological distress, first responders and community service providers turn to the CIT model for a collaborative, structured, and coordinated response.

The course explores the growing factors impacting youth mental health and the needs of various youth populations such as the LGBTQ+ community.  Focusing on the applicability of CIT youth crisis response, the course provides next steps and resources for CIT implementation. Law enforcement officers, mental health practitioners, and mental health advocates draw upon their unique experiences to share best practices.

Learning Objectives:

• Examine the contributing factors to mental health crises in young people
• Explore the impact of youth mental health issues on communities
• Examine the need for crisis response for youth who are members of populations such as the LGBTQ+ community
• Explore current youth-focused crisis response practices being implemented by CIT practitioners
• Examine the goals and desired outcomes related to youth-focused crisis response and the CIT model
• Identify the potential benefits of CIT implementation on youth-focused crisis response
• Explore the next steps in CIT implementation planning to support youth in crisis
• Identify key national CIT, youth support, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and mental health organizations and resources

Target Audience: Public safety and community service practitioners, decision makers, and policy planners from any discipline involved in facilitating effective responses to youth mental-health crises.

Cooperative Partners: This tuition-free online training was developed by the National Center for Policing Innovation (NCPI) and was originally supported by cooperative agreement 15JCOPS-21-GK-02306-SPPS by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Learning Hours: 1 hour including the pre-test and post-test.