The Crisis Intervention Team ( CIT ) is a first responder model of police based crisis intervention within a community, health care and advocacy partnerships. It provides law enforcement-based crisis intervention training for assisting those individuals with a mental illness and at he same time, improves the safety of patrol officers, consumers ( people suffering from a mental illness ) relatives and citizens within each community.
The CIT Model reduces both stigma and the need for further involvement with the criminal justice system. It provides a forum for effective problem solving with regard to the interaction between the criminal justice and mental health care systems and creates the context for sustainable change