HomeMy WebLinkAboutletterFeb 10 05 11:47a Jail Diversion
305 540-5299
p.2
05 -b o l 63,
February 10, 2005
Dear Honorable Joe Arriola,
On behalf of the Honorable Steven Leifman, Associate Administrative Judge of the
Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, I would like to request to be on the agenda for your
March 10th, 2005 City Commission meeting.
The Honorable Steven Leifman would like a few minutes to inform the forum of Crisis
Intervention Team (CIT) training offered to all police departments here in Miami -Dade
County.
The purpose of the Crisis Intervention Team training program is to:
• Train law enforcement officers in responding more effectively to crisis calls involving
individuals suffering from mental illness. CIT officers are skilled to quickly identify
signs of mental illness and de-escalating potentially volatile situations.
• Reduce the incident of injury of officers and the mentally ill in their interactions,
s Divert mentally ill offenders from the criminal justice system by referring them, if
appropriate, to crisis units for psychiatric treatment and care.
Our goal in attending your meeting is to further educate the community on this service
being provided through the Jail Diversion Expansion program. This program flanctions
within the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project and is supported
through local, state and Federal funding.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Habsi W. Kaba MS MFT
CIT Educational Trainer
Jail Diversion Expansion Program
Eleventh Judcial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project
Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, Rm.#104
1351 NW 12th Street
Miami, FL 33125
Office 305.548.5639
Cellular 786.267.0612
Fax 305.548.5298
Hkaba@jud l 1 .flcourts.org
Cc: Agenda Officer