See What Bergen's Crisis Intervention Team Does, Enjoy Music, Food, More At County Park

The June 30 event in the Ridgefield Park section of Overpeck Park runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

There will be entertainment, demonstrations, resource information, food trucks, events for kids and more.

The CIT is an innovative certification training program for law enforcement, mental health providers and emergency-service professionals in dealing with people experiencing a mental health crisis.

It's been proven to reduce arrests -- as well as injuries to police -- while increasing mental health care referrals.

The program, which recently was expanded to include dispatchers, has had 165 classes, training 5,000 or so first responders.

The 11th training session (five days, 40 hours) began this week at the Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute in Mahwah.

The training shows participants "how to recognize and identify when an individual is experiencing a mental health crisis and safely and compassionately approach the situation," the organization said.

Advanced training has included classes addressing "Youth in Crisis," "Excited Delirium," "Verbal Judo," "Autism Training," "Tourette Syndrome" and "Safety in the Workplace.

Attendees who bring a non-perishable food donation to the CIT's June 30 event will be entered into a drawing for special prizes. The donations will go to the Center for Food Action.

Monetary donations can be made to the Bergen County CIT by emailing Amie Del Sordo at amied@careplusnj.org.

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