BLUE PRINT
Advanced Juvenile Crisis
Intervention Team (CIT) Training &
Officer Identified Juvenile Clinical
Case Management
Suzanne M. Andriukaitis, MA, LCSW
P.O. Kurt Gawrisch, MA
Ashley Fontaine, LCSW
Rationale for the development of
this two component program:
• After several classes of the Basic 40-hour CIT training,
Chicago police officers assigned to schools and other
officers working primarily with juveniles asked for
additional training on handling juveniles in crisis. They
also wanted additional training about legal and service
issues that applied to juveniles.
• If juveniles are being diverted by officers from arrest for
behaviors or offenses related to mental health crises,
then it follows that in order to mitigate against future
involvement with law enforcement officers there is a
need to intervene with these juveniles and their family
members to enhance involvement in the mental health
service system and access to social services.
Program Goal:
 The overall goal of this program is to reduce the
arrest or re-arrest of juveniles identified by CIT
officers as having unaddressed mental health
needs.
Program Objectives:
• The primary objective of this program is to
develop and provide Advanced Juvenile 40-hour
CIT training for 360 Chicago police officers who
had completed the Basic CIT training.
• A second objective of this project is to assist
juveniles and their family members to connect
firmly with mental health providers.
• A third objective is to assist juveniles and their
family members to identify and resolve other
social service needs.
Part I. Advanced Juvenile Crisis
Intervention Team (CIT) Training
A. Pre-Program Landscape –
Necessary Building Blocks
•
•
•
•
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Basic 40-hour Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training
for law enforcement officers is in place and well
received by officers and community partners.
Ongoing collaborative working relationships among:
law enforcement officers
mental health providers
inpatient psychiatric hospitals – drop-off hospitals
Chicago Public School system
juvenile justice programs
advocacy organization
Recognition of the Need for Juvenile CIT training by
law enforcement officers.
A potential source of funding for the costs of program
delivery
B. Idea Launch - Needs Assessment,
Capacity, & Potential Funding Sources
•
•
•
•
•
•
Officer Enthusiasm - Basic CIT trained officers asking in large
numbers for additional training about juvenile mental health
signs & symptoms, laws specific to juveniles, information about
mental health service providers, and best practices when
interfacing with distressed juveniles.
Evaluate numbers of Basic CIT trained officers in your community
who regularly interface with juveniles (school officers, etc.)
Identifiable/Quantifiable/Data-based Need(s) in your community
for intervention with juveniles who come in contact with law
enforcement officers.
Evaluate your capacity to develop a program – time, expertise,
funding, & programmatic support up the chain of command.
Research other existing similar programs.
Identify more secure prospect(s) for funding.
C. Program Development – Stage 1 –
Building the Juvenile CIT Curriculum
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identify key stakeholders, secure their agreement, uncover and
deal with resistance.
Secure Department Head(s) agreement with the concept, uncover
and deal with resistance.
Hold discussion meeting(s) with stakeholders from the above
named list of collaborators to obtain buy-in for building the
training program.
Identify essential core elements of instruction for the training.
Involve collaborators in building the training program education
blocks, set time tables for deliverables, and provide technical and
logistical assistance.
Share the deliverables with the entire group of collaborators.
Secure firm commitment from potential expert presenters.
D. Program Development – Stage 2 –
Grant Writing / Funding the Program
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identify the two or three key persons to involve in the grant writing
process.
Clarify the goals and objectives of the program among these key persons
and share this with the broader stakeholder group.
Research and consider all genuine potential funders – federal, state,
local, foundations, department funds, private donors, etc.
Identify a grant writer skilled at writing grants for the specific potential
funding source.
As the grant writing progresses stay on top of which of your collaborators
need specific involvement in the day to day grant activities, secure their
agreement and keep them in the loop as the grant activities are being
committed to paper.
Reassess and justify the number of officers, size of classes, and other
quantifiable numbers.
Develop the budget needed as the grant activities are being spelled out.
Sustainability - Develop evaluation plans to justify continuation of the
program and securing ongoing funding for the program.
E. Program Development – Stage 3 Delivery of the Advanced Juvenile
CIT Training
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
▫
▫
▫
Comply with all paperwork required by the funding source.
Set training date(s), request applications from officers
(voluntary), review applications for suitability, enroll officers.
Secure training location.
Reconfirm presenters.
Prepare handouts, pre-post evaluations, daily evaluations of
presentations, coffee, snacks and other logistics.
Deliver the training.
Post the training –
Re-evaluate and reassess content, presenters, etc.
Hold focus groups or other means of feedback from officers.
Mechanism of support for the officers.
Part II. Officer Identified
Juvenile Clinical Case
Management
A. Pre-Program Landscape –
Necessary Building Blocks
•
•
•
•
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
▫
Trained Advanced Juvenile (CIT) officers.
A provider or organization with expertise in providing
information, referrals, education, support, and
advocacy for juveniles and their families.
Capacity to provide or a means of securing ongoing
clinical supervision of case workers.
Provider or organization with ongoing collaborative
working relationships with:
law enforcement officers
mental health providers
inpatient psychiatric hospitals – drop-off hospitals
juvenile justice programs
advocacy organizations
schools of social work and professional psychology.
B. Idea Launch – After Securing
Funding for the Program
•
•
•
•
•
Our grant funding required the creation of positions as a
condition of applying for the funding. Therefore, the grant writer
wrote in 2 ½ positions for graduate level interns.
Initial meeting with CIT Coordinators and representatives of area
professional schools and drop-off hospitals to secure their buy-in
and explore methods of securing supervision for project interns.
Original plan was for project interns to be based at the hospitals
to greet juveniles and their families at the time of hospital
admission. Deemed unrealistic for a multitude of reasons.
Held monthly meetings with professional school and hospital
personnel to update and refine plans.
Developed Memorandum of Understanding between the
professional graduate schools and NAMI of Greater Chicago.
AND….
•
•
•
•
Explored possible overlapping of activities between
this project’s workers and state of Illinois Department
of Mental Health paid for agency workers in the SASS
(Sreening, Assessment, & Support Services) programs.
Determined that while overlap of goals existed these
were for the most part on paper only since the SASS
workers were primarily carrying out the task of
approving or rejecting a juvenile’s need for
hospitalization and only rarely providing the kind of
intervention services being proposed for this project.
Interviewed and selected potential project interns.
Completed all paperwork required by funding source
in order to obtain the promised dollars.
Continue ongoing reporting to funding source as
required.
C. Program Development – Stage 1 –
Crafting the Tools for Case
Management
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Interns sat in on the 40-hour Advanced Juvenile CIT training as early in
their internship as possible.
Reviewed and updated all Referral Resources in NAMI of Greater
Chicago’s database that dealt specifically with children and adolescents.
Trained interns to use NAMI of Greater Chicago’s Referral Database.
Prepared materials describing the program and NAMI of Greater Chicago
for distribution at the hospitals and to CIT officers during the trainings.
Developed consent forms for juveniles and their parents to sign.
Began the development of a database to track project clients – juveniles,
their parents, and sometimes other siblings.
Met with research evaluators from local universities to plot potential data
for evaluating the project.
Located a straight forward self-evaluation tool for juveniles, their
parents, and project staff to complete on a periodic basis in order to track
progress. We are using the Columbia Impairment Scale (CIS).
D. Program Development – Stage 2 –
Securing and Initiating Contact with
Juveniles - Initial
•
•
•
Outreach visits to Advanced Juvenile CIT trained
school officers at their school locations to acquaint
them with project staff and remind them of the project
objectives
Project staff visited drop-off hospitals’ intake staff to
explain this project and the objective of working with
juveniles identified by officers as potentially having
mental health issues in an attempt to secure hospital’s
willingness to notify NAMI of Greater Chicago of these
evaluations/admissions.
Development of a monthly ‘coffee meeting’ between
project staff and Advanced Juvenile CIT trained
officers to address their concerns and issues.
E. Program Development – Stage 3 –
Delivering Services to Juveniles &
Their Families
•
•
•
•
•
•
Meet with juveniles and their family members to offer the free
information and referral services of NAMI of Greater Chicago.
Develop friendly helpful relationships by addressing needs
identified by juveniles and their family members as they see them.
E.g.., a need for warm, winter clothing, IDs, IEPs.
Project staff interfaced with providers and programs to secure
potential enrollment.
Project staff researched programs to meet expressed needs. E.g.,
an after-school boxing class for a 12 year old.
Database was refined to allow for tracking of additional
information.
Data collection and entry on an ongoing basis.
F. Evaluating the Project – Stage 4
•
•
•
•
•
Developing skills in using SPSS to analyze and graph
data.
Met regularly with research evaluators from the
universities to refine data gathering based on the
experiences of the project in the first several months.
Hold ongoing periodic (quarterly) meetings with CIT
central training staff and with personnel from the
professional schools supplying the project interns.
Focus groups or ongoing electronic contact with
trained CIT officers.
Follow-up meetings with officers and relevant school
staff.
G. By Products
• Ongoing consultation with hospitals regarding
intake procedures
▫ paperwork to track officer drop-offs
▫ physical locations for drop-offs.
• Training for Dispatch/911 Call Takers to identify
mental health needs and route to CIT officers.
• Z code to identify CIT trained officers.
• Training of School personnel – Security,
principals, etc.
H. Lessons Learned
• Baseline Data
▫ # of kids arrested
▫ Community demographics
• Extensive Resource Directory
• Funding for meeting physical needs &/or
emergencies
• Identifying community-wide gaps
Thanks for your attention
• For additional information: (312) 563-0445
▫ Suzanne Andriukaitis – namigc@aol.com
▫ Ashley Fontaine – ashley@namigc.org
▫ Kurt Gawrisch – kurt.gawrisch@chicagopolice.org