The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office clocked over 4,500 hours of training in 2018, many of which went toward crisis intervention training. According to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, the department had a total of 4,588 hours of training in 2018, which is more than double the 2,136 they had in 2016. Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek says that the rise is due to the department trying to get the entire agency trained in crisis intervention.

Pulkrabek says the training has really helped his team be more prepared, “I think it really gives us the tools to identify people that they might be getting called to that are having a mental health crisis. It gives them some tools on recognizing what they might be going through, what they might be dealing with, ideas on how to help the individual, things like that. It’s just a tool that gives them better recognition skills.”

Crisis intervention training has been developed to help an individual dealing with a mental health crisis that can be brought on by feeling overwhelmed, who have exhausted their skills for coping, and who are experiencing personal discomfort.