The recent, albeit-long debated, controversy about gun control often focuses on the mental health component to heinous crimes. But, it’s not just the headline making crimes that are committed by the mentally impaired. It can be your common everyday law breaking or civil disturbance. Knowing how to interact with someone in a psychiatric crisis is important for everyone in law enforcement and emergency response.

“Crisis Intervention Teams are a pre-booking jail diversion program designed to improve the outcomes of police interactions with people with mental illnesses,” reads the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ fact sheet.

This 40-hour training course is designed to give officers and responders a better understanding of mental illness as well as techniques to divert individuals from jail to treatment.

To benefit NAMI Far North and Region 1 CIT, a dinner, Take a Seat at the Table, will be held on Saturday, June 8, at PSB’s Atrium. Celebrating five years of crisis intervention training, the funds raised will be matched by the Stewart Family Charitable Fund up to $5,000 and will go towards improving the lives of individuals living with mental illness.

According to the Centers of Disease Control, mental health and mental illness, despite the terms being often interchangeable, are two different things. As you can imagine, mental health is “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”

Mental illness, however, is defined as “collectively all diagnosable mental disorders or health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning.”

Dr. Ann Wimberley, NAMI Far North board director describes mental illnesses as akin to biological illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

“They affect one in seventeen people and one in five families. Seventy to 90 percent of individuals have a decrease in symptoms and a better quality of life when treated,” she said.

The CDC agrees with Wimberley. They explain that depression, the most common type of mental illness, affects more than 26 percent of adults in the U.S. They project that by 2020, it will be the “second leading cause of disability throughout the world, trailing only ischemic heart disease.”

Sheriff Daryl Wheeler put mental illness’ effect on the community in prospective when he said that every week officers deal with at least one individual needing to be put on mental hold.

“Last week we had three people hospitalized at the same time,” Wheeler said. “CIT training gives officers the tools to problem solve when someone is in a psychiatric crisis. This training is very important.”

Wheeler said that the sheriff’s department partners with NAMI for the training. Currently, 70 percent of the patrol force and 20 percent of the detention staff has completed the course with the goal of reaching 100 percent in the future.

Wimberley said that half the funds raised at the dinner will be used for CIT training, the other half to fund other NAMI Far North projects. Cost for the dinner is $40 per person, $70 per couple and reservations can be made by sending a check to NAMI Far North, P.O. Box 2415, Sandpoint 83864. For more information email namifarnorth@yahoo.com, call 597-6911 or go to their website www.nami.org/sites/namifarnorth.

Kathy Hubbard is a trustee on Bonner General Hospital Foundation Board. She can be reached at kathyleehubbard@yahoo.com or 264-4029.