HUTTO – The Hutto Police Department is arming its officers with a new tool: training to help in cases involving people with mental disorders or mental disabilities. The department recognized its first set of officers to gain the certification this month and intends to have every officer trained as a certified Mental Health Officer by the end of the year.
“This initiative underscores our dedication to creating a supportive environment where officers can gain valuable knowledge, resources, and experience to effectively handle mental health-related calls,” said a department spokesperson.
More than 50 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control, yet of those, fewer than half will receive help for their disorders.
Hutto officers face mental health crisis calls in many forms, ranging from a person with mental disabilities wandering off and requiring search and rescue operations, to the murder-suicide that happened in Hutto in February. In that instance, officers were trying to communicate with the shooter when he killed himself. The event happened before the crisis negotiation experts were able to arrive at the scene.
“Although we don’t have real world situations like this, we train with scenario-based events and actions,” Yarbrough said at the time.
He told the media that Hutto police officers were trained in de-escalation, active shooter events, and a variety of areas of expertise. Now, they will be trained in handling calls involving mental health situations as well.
Mental Health Officer certification is a program of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. The training covers the legal aspects of mental health commitments, liability issues, mental disorders, and mental disabilities. In addition, it deals with a variety of developmental disabilities including epilepsy, cerebral palsy and hearing impairments.
The course teaches officer to recognize indicators of mental illness, how to create the interpersonal relations necessary to effectively work with the mentally ill, their families, and the mental health system, and intervention strategies for dealing with both low and high-risk situations, according to TCOLE.
Hutto PD also has a victim assistance unit to support victims of crime. The unit can help survivors and their families who often face mental health issues after being victim to crime. Mental health and counseling referrals, crisis intervention and grief resources are some of the services they can help with.
Members of the public who want to learn skills to help someone who is experiencing a mental health crisis can receive free training through the Mental Health First Aid program at Bluebonnet Trails Community Services. Bluebonnet Trails is one of many area resources providing mental health services.
To find out more about the Mental Health First Aid program, visit bbtrails.org/mental-health-first-aid.
