Poverty, Homelessness, and War: Architechture at the Venice Biennale

by B. Lana Guggenheim, Staff Writer

The Venice Biennale is getting a lot of airtime, but what is it? As might be implied from its name, it is a biennial festival held in Venice concerning art, architecture, and film. The first was held in 1895, when the Venetian City Council set up an art exhibit to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy. As the event grew and gained prestige, more nations began presenting their art in national pavilions. Every festival has a name and theme. The 2015 Art festival was named “All the World’s Futures,” and the exhibits naturally concerned the dire state of the world itself, including issues surrounding colonialism, immigration, and multiculturalism. This year is the 15th Architecture biennale, and the theme is “Reporting From the Front.” (The art and architecture shows alternate, so that there is a biennale annually.)

The director and curator for this year’s Architecture Biennale is Alejandro Aravena, a highly accomplished architect who won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2016 for his design of the Siamese Towers at the Catholic University in his home country of Chile. He also won the Silver Lion at the 11th Architecture Biennale, and received a Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2008, and a Holcim Awards Silver for Sustainable Construction. As one can might be able to tell from the nature of his past work, it due to his direction that the theme of this year’s show focuses on what architecture can do to aid the ills of others, rather than examining the ills of the profession, as was done in 2014. As Robert Landon reported from ArchDaily, Aravena stated in his opening remarks that  "We believe that the advancement of architecture is not a goal in itself but a way to improve people’s quality of life." In other words, his biennale does not ask what architecture ought, yet often fails, to be, but rather what it could, yet often forgets, to do.

In the central pavilion, Aravena notes that over a billion rural people will move to the cities, and often their homes will be built without the input of an architect. As a result, the display of simple, reusable templates, designs featuring simple materials, and the ability to be reproduced by non-professionals is both pointed and horizon-broadening. It also recalls Aravena’s downloadable, open-source urban housing project, designed to encourage participatory building and slash costs, with an eye towards infrastructure for the urban poor.

The exhibits here focus on how architecture can improve and otherwise impact lives, and they have a decidedly political bent, showing both success stories and celebrating innovation as well as highlighting where there is desperate need. The sum result is an expansion of horizons, as architecture is called upon to answer environmental, political, social, and economic needs, in profoundly regional and local terms, rather than just (sometimes highly sanitized) cultural, artistic, and functional demands to which the field so often limits itself.

Different pavilions highlight different things, to come together to form a cohesive response to Aravena’s theme. Spain’s pavilion, “Unfinished,” took the prestigious Golden Lion award this year. The recent economic crisis has proven especially hard for the country, and their architectural exhibit relays this struggle, especially for their architects. When the crisis hit, many projects were left unfinished and abandoned as they were no longer economically feasible, and half-completed and ill-maintained projects litter the cityscapes as a result.  Photographs of these buildings present them as an opportunity for the present, with uncertainty and evolution as part of the nature of architecture, and especially poignant for Spain at the current day.

Gabinete de Arquitectura also took a Golden Lion for their exhibit, which was entitled “Breaking the Siege.” Solano Benitez’s studio is focused on bricks, a versatile, easy to make material that is accessible to all walks of life all over the world, and thus uses it almost exclusively. The light, airy structure is a statement on structural ingenuity, simple materials, and unskilled labor to make architecture accessible to underserved communities.

Britain’s pavilion, “Home Economics,” takes a look at their acute housing crisis, thanks in part to Thatcher’s Right to Buy program, which promoted private gain over common prosperity, and helped engineer a housing shortage that gave way to “Generation Rent.” But the nature of the home has also changed over the generations, including mass migration and global interconnectedness along with growing wage disparity and lack of economic mobility. The models on display here therefore show how shared living can be a luxury rather than mere economic necessity, and avoiding the common problems of speculation and predation in the real estate market. The result is very pragmatic and directly applicable.

The Dutch Blue pavilion is particularly interesting, as it addresses the role of architecture in urban conflict. Increasingly, conflicts and the security apparatus and infrastructure supporting it both are in cities. The exhibit looks at the UN outpost at Gao, Mali, with the title of the exhibit in reference to both the UN Peacekeepers’ blue helmets, and the indigo garb of the Tuareg, the desert people who live on the edge of the Sahara. The project proposes that architecture be part of the planning process of UN peacekeeping bases, in order to leave behind a stronger city with better infrastructure and resources that will aid local populations long after the mission has departed.

Ukraine’s exhibition is a live report from the warfront, and Venice’s is dedicated to Marghera, a polluted and abandoned port. Germany’s talks about immigration in the wake of the Syrian influx of refugees, and looks at “problem zones” as opportunities. Scotland’s virtual reality exhibit is both playful and hopeful, using horse masks as the interface to talk about their history and near extinction of their Gaelic culture, depopulation, and re-orientation towards the Nordic and opening Arctic in the wake of climate change and development.

It’s impossible to describe every pavilion, and the regional takes on the Aravena’s global theme. But perhaps most poignant is not what is at the Biennale, but what was inspired by it: one group of Yale students proposed pop-up religious structures to sustain community and culture in refugee camps, where the transient nature normally prevents such structures from being built. This focus on how architecture can address moral and community needs bereft of resources, materials, and expertise, heeding the sacred in a profoundly unsanctioned environment. It shows that Aravena’s call to broaden architecture’s horizons has been heeded.

Works Cited

"Biography: Alejandro Aravena." The Pritzker Architecture Prize. The Hyatt Foundation, Jan. 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

"BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions: Inside the Netherlands' Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 31 May 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Carnicero, Iñaqui, and Carlos Quintáns. "Spain's "Unfinished" - Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2016 Venice Biennale." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 28 May 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Doroteo, Jan. "Yale Students Propose a Series of Pop-Up Religious Buildings to Sustain Culture in Refugee Camps." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 10 June 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

"First Look: "Reporting from the Front" Arsenale Exhibition." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 26 May 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Landon, Robert. "Aravena's "Reporting From The Front" Is Nothing Like Koolhaas' 2014 Biennale-But It's Equally as Good." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 14 June 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

"Prospect North: Inside Scotland's Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 07 June 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Russeth, Andrew. "The 2015 Venice Biennale’s Central Show, Focused on Strife, Is Uneasy, Uneven." ARTnews. ARTnews, 05 June 2015. Web. 15 June 2016.

Self, Jack. "Home Economics: Inside the British Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 14 June 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Smith, Roberta. "Review: Art for the Planet’s Sake at the Venice Biennale." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 May 2015. Web. 15 June 2016.

Valencia, Nicolás. "Malkit Shoshan on How the City Is a Shared Ground for the Instruments of War and Peace." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 17 May 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Watkins, Katie. "Gabinete De Arquitectura's." ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 31 May 2016. Web. 15 June 2016.

Building a Culture of Caring in Your Classroom

By Karen LeVasseur, LCSW, owner and therapist at Calm4Kids Therapy Center, LLC

Building Character

Having worked as an elementary school teacher for many years I know the importance of building character in your classroom. I learned over the years that time spent on character education, in particular at the beginning of the school year, was time well spent. Think about it. To engage successfully in academic learning, the following skills need to be in place:

- Emotional regulation

- Problem solving

- Communication

- Teamwork

Students don't always come to school with the skills that they need and it is up to the educator to support kids in learning the "how" of getting through their school day. If you have ever read The First Six Weeks of School by Paula Denton and Roxanne Kriete, you will agree that spending time at the beginning of the school year, setting expectations, modeling and practicing socially acceptable behaviors, establishing a routine for identifying and resolving conflict and solving problems as a team will set up your students for success and allow your classroom to run like a well oiled machine. 

Setting Kids Up For Success

I remember one year, when I taught fifth grade. I was excited for the year, having been in fourth grade for many years. I was eager to dive into the fifth grade curriculum and set up a great academic program for my kids. Unfortunately, the twenty five youngsters in my class were not as excited as I was. The school year started off with problem behaviors, arguments, yelling, teasing... It was not the happy school year I had envisioned. About three weeks in, I brought academics to a screeching halt and put a heavy emphasis on character building. During the next month and a half I started holding a morning meeting each day, used the time right after recess for meditation and created an "Acts of Kindness" Wall. Everything we did academically involved practicing team-building and problem solving skills and assertive communication. By the end of October, my students not only knew what to expect and what to do, they also knew how to do it well. My well oiled machine was achieved!

Morning Meeting

Holding a morning meeting is an important part of your classroom culture. Starting each day as a community, interacting positively with one another is a great way to start off the day on the right foot, for students and for the teacher! There are many different activities you can incorporate into your morning meeting. Be creative and add activities that feel right for you and for your kids. Some ideas include:

Class Pledge- Write a pledge that speaks to the core values you want at work in your class. An example is "I pledge allegiance to my class, that I will try my best, to make good choices and try real hard to be responsible like the rest. I care about the others here and I care about me. I want school to be a special place where I learn and want to be!"

Greetings- One year I taught my students to greet one another using both Spanish and American Sign Language. Students would pair off and say/sign "Good morning, how are you?" The student would respond with "Good morning, I am (happy, mad, tired, sick...). How are you?" The kids loved the bilingual challenge!

Circle of Friends- Ask your students to sit in a circle either on the floor or in chairs. Pose a question such as "How will you be successful today?" or pose a challenge such as "Compliment the person next to you on something nice they did yesterday" and have each student respond. Emphasize active listening skills and use a talking stick if needed.

Problem Solving Box- Set up a box in the classroom with problem sheets that students can fill out indicating the following: I have a problem with... It is a problem because... I have tried to solve it by.... Each morning pull out one problem sheet and read it to the class. Allow the kids to generate possible solutions to the problem. The person who wrote the sheet can remain anonymous or they can identify themselves. Either way, the child with the problem will leave the circle with many new ideas to try!

Minute to Win It- Put kids into pairs and give them a 60 second challenge to complete together. Use riddles, math problems, rebus puzzles or have them complete a physical or building task like on the tv show. Allow the students to be noisy and have fun while they build teamwork skills!

Calm Kids are Productive Kids

I think one of the best decisions I ever made as a teacher was to add meditation to my schedule. I have used the technique at different times of the day but found that right after recess really helped kids to recharge and refocus, allowing success for the second half of the day. The meditation does not have to be long. Even a few minutes of mindfulness to breath and stillness can calm an active or emotionally labile child allowing them to make good choices with their behavior and with peer interaction. Try some of these techniques. I'm sure you will notice a difference in your students' affect as well as your own!

60 Second Vacation- Have the kids lay on the floor or relax in their seats. Ask them to close their eyes and imagine a place where they feel happy, calm and safe. Guide them in using their senses to explore this place, envisioning themselves doing something to be focused, calm and successful. After about 60 seconds of quiet visualization and deep breathing refocus students on the classroom environment and their job as a student.

A Moment of Stillness- Have kids relax as above and guide them in taking slow, deep breaths (belly breaths) filling up their lungs and expanding their abdomen like a balloon on the in breath, then releasing on the out breath. Once a breathing pattern has been established, ask the kids to continue breathing, remaining as still as possible for a minute of meditation. It is helpful to have them imagine sinking into their chair or melting into the floor. When time is up ask the kids to open their eyes and focus on your face (or a point in the room), taking one more cleansing breath.

Breathing Buddies- Students lay on their back on the floor with a small stuffed animal on their bellies. This is called their breathing buddy who helps them learn to take belly breaths as described above. Model for students how to take a belly breath, saying "On the in breath the belly goes out and on the out breath the belly goes in." Guide students in taking slow, deep belly breaths for a few minutes then collect the buddies and get back to work feeling refreshed!

Meditation for Kids

Meditation For Kids: Parents Turn To Mindfulness Practices To Help Children Stay Calm

Being Kind is Cool!

It is helpful to teach kids the importance of being kind and caring toward others. I helped my students learn this valuable lesson by first identifying acts of kindness in literature, providing roleplay scenarios and by inviting the "Note Fairy" to visit my classroom (she secretly leaves notes for students who she witnessed acting kindly toward others). Once the term "Act of Kindness" was well understood and students were regularly engaging in AoK's I set up an "Acts of Kindness" Wall where students could note the kindness of others or post their note from the Note Fairy to celebrate their own success. Each week a different student was honored on the wall with a brief description of how he/she went above and beyond in helping our classroom be a kind and caring environment. Regular celebration of success really helped to motivate kids to be kind to others and to themselves!

Random Acts of Kindness

Welcome | Random Acts of Kindness
Kindness stories, quotes, ideas, classroom resources and more.

Try some of these ideas and please share the wonderful things you do in your classroom! Be creative, have fun and remember, "What you notice will happen more!" Celebrate your students' successes and help them to build the skills they need to be able to add to the culture of caring you have established in your classroom.

Karen LeVasseur is an LCSW and is owner and operator of Calm4Kids Therapy Center, LLC in Bradley Beach, NJ where she offers hypnotherapy, play therapy, EFT, and mindfulness based psychotherapy for clients ages 3 through adult. Karen also has vast experience as a School Counselor, Elementary School Teacher, School Social Worker and School Anti-Bullying Specialist.

Occupational Therapy: A New Frontier in Healthcare

by B. Lana Guggenheim

Occupational therapy is often confused for other therapies, such as physical therapy. But while occupational therapy does sometimes make use of medical and physical therapies, its practice encompasses a much wider series of activities and healthcare prerogatives.

Physical therapy is a highly specific medical profession and series of practices focusing on a patient’s abilities to move and perform functions. Occupational therapy can and does encompass this, but its focus is on the daily work and life skills of a patient. As such, it covers not just physical capabilities, but mental and cognitive disorders, and other barriers, both physical and environmental, to a patient’s independence. Occupational therapy is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing from psychology, medical science, and social work.

Both physical and occupational therapies have their roots in ancient medical practices like massage and hydrotherapy advocated by physicians including Hippocrates and Galen. But the earliest evidence of using occupations as a therapy method (occupations meaning activities that occupy a person’s time, rather than paid labor) was by the Greek physician Asclepiades in 100 BCE, who advocated humane treatment of patients with mental illness using baths, massages, exercise and music - practices which had been dropped by medieval times, only to be revived in the past two centuries.

Modern physical therapy was established as a discipline towards the end of the 19th century in response to polio and World War I, which increased global demand for such aid. However, occupational therapy began as part of an 18th century hospital reform by French revolutionaries Philippe Pinel and Johann Christian Reil, using work and leisure activities as part of patient therapies. This was part of something called “Moral Treatment,” an Enlightenment-era philosophy that approached mental illness with humane care, derived both from the emerging science of psychology, as well as moral and religious mores. This led to the rise of asylums, which only declined in use in the 20th century. The Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th century also impacted occupational therapy, as it emerged as a form of human occupation and creativity in the face of loss of autonomy and monotony found in increasingly common factory work, as well as staving off boredom for those confined to long hospital stays, whether that was due to mental illness or physical malady. By the early 1900s, occupational therapy was becoming professionalized, challenging the mainstream views of scientific medicine by being inherently interdisciplinary, incorporating social and economic understandings with medical principles.

Reconstruction aides, an umbrella term for both occupational and physical therapists during World War I, most of whom were women, were very successful. Post-war, in order to keep people interested in the profession, emphasis shifted from war-time altruism to the financial and professional satisfaction of being a therapist, and practice and curriculum were standardized, and the profession obtained medical legitimacy in the 1920s. Today, one requires a minimum of a Master’s degree to practice in the field, but increasingly there are doctorate programs and research avenues opening up as well. Occupational therapy is increasingly focused on a patient’s mental health and in treating mental illness.

Ultimately, the two core principles underlying occupation therapy are the centrality of occupations as a basic human need, bringing meaning to life culturally and personally, and thus is therapeutic, and the concept of holism, indicating that a person and their health can only be properly understood in concept of their larger social environment. Occupational therapy grew out of practical applications of psychology and healthcare practice, but there is an increasing emphasis on research, and occupational science, the study of people as occupational beings, was founded in 1989 as a way to provide evidence-based research to support and advance occupational therapy. Occupational science underlines the ability of people to pursue occupations, specific activities that give their lives structure and meaning. While still young, there are increasing numbers of programs offering doctoral degrees in this emerging social science.

Occupational science understands occupations as an antidote to psychological pain, offering structure and means to find meaning in people’s lives. It influences patients’ health, self-respect, and sense of dignity. It is not so much the specific activities undertaken, so much as that the activities chosen are laden with symbolic meaning, thus making occupation a uniquely human enterprise, a point of human experience mostly ignored by other social sciences, and critically important particularly to the development of occupational therapy. Only once the place and potency of a given occupation, defined as culturally and personally meaningful human activity, in a person’s life is understood can therapies be tailored to their needs.

Occupation therefore encompasses much more than just paid labour, but hobbies, habits, personal rituals, or cultural activities as well. Many occupations are not productive, but primarily pleasurable, as their purpose is to imbue meaning and carry some sort of symbolism rather than material benefit. And research has indicated that mundane, daily activities affect psychological well-being far greater than major life events, meaning that the ramifications of a person orchestrating and organizing their daily lives and engaging in occupations are significant, particularly because unlike animals, human activity requires self-awareness, memory, planning, and engaging in layers of personal and cultural meanings.

Occupational science however addresses both these, as well as neurobiology and physical health. The USC Department of Occupational Therapy developed a Model of Human Subsystems that Influence Occupation to provide a conceptual framework by which all these factors interact and influence a person’s development. The model depicts a human as an occupational being, seen as an open system in interaction with their environment over the course of their life. The use of the systems model, here consisting of six substrates, explain developmental changes in a person over the course of their life is consistent with developmental psychology, of which in this case, a chosen occupation is the output.

These systems allow occupational scientists to examine how a person makes sense of their life via their chosen activities, within the context in which they function and its significance to the individual in question, which in turn requires a synthesis of knowledge from the biological and social sciences. This model allows it to function as a blueprint to organize the research and findings of faculty, students, and practitioners into a unified corpus of knowledge. The applications of this new science, while born from occupational therapy, will apply far beyond it to other disciplines, though both are empowered by the same values, namely the central role that occupation plays in health and life happiness, and viewing a person as an active agent in their own life.

This is important for keeping occupational therapy practices on track, as some worry that it was becoming over-focused on acute care instead of helping patients, especially the disabled or those with chronic disease, improve life opportunities and ability. Instead, therapists are seen as “treatment machines” and patients as “products” to be displayed on a balance sheet. If one’s identity isn’t taken into account except superficially, any therapies are not going to be as effective as they might, especially because many patients are navigating a transition from their old lives to a life with new parameters and limitations. One’s occupations allow a patient to bridge that gap and provide a framework for adaptation and recovery. Occupational science can help occupational therapists aid patients in internalizing this aspect into their clinical reasoning and therapies, helping nurture the human spirit as well as the human body.

Works Cited

Clark, Florence A., Diane Parham, Michael E. Carson, Gelya Frank, Jeanne Jackson, Doris Pierce, Robert J. Wolfe, and Ruth Zemke. "Occupational Science: Academic Innovation in the Service of Occupational Therapy's Future." The American Journal of Occupational Therapy 45.4 (1991): 300-10. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

Clark, Florence. "Occupation Embedded in a Real Life: Interweaving Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy." American Journal of Occupational Therapy 47 (1993): 1067-078. Web.

"The History Of Occupational Therapy." The History Of Occupational Therapy. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

Jackson, Linda. "The New Research Climate Surrounding Occupational Therapy." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 27 Jan. 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

A Deadly Dance: The Police and the Mentally Ill

by B. Lana Guggenheim

Police brutality against citizens, particularly minorities, has been much discussed these past few years. However, one minority group has been ignored: the mentally ill. Across the USA, and beyond, police are frequently the first responders to situations involving the mentally ill, usually with dire consequences for the latter. Reliable statistics on police interaction are difficult to find, but anywhere from one-tenth to a quarter of all police interactions involve the mentally ill, approximately 15-20% of those in jail suffer mental illness, and about one quarter to one half of those shot by police struggled with mental illness. Estimates are that people with mental illness are sixteen times more likely to be killed by the police. While being ill is not a crime, being mentally ill is often criminalized, and problems involving or associated with people with mental illness often involve police, who are often not properly trained to handle such situations.

It is commonly but inaccurately thought that people with mental illness are likely to be violent or engaged in violent crime. While a small percentage are indeed more violent than the general population, this is not true for the majority. Most people with mental illnesses are not criminals, and of those who are, most are not violent. That these non-violent people in need of help often end up in jail or worse is an avoidable tragedy. After all, nurses and other medical staff are unarmed, unarmored, and they aid mentally ill patients every day, with no fatalities on either side.

Part of the problem is that our gutted health system cannot handle the burden of caring for the people who need it most. Many mental health clinics are closing, leaving their patients without the care they need, and they often end up on the streets as a result. And the top mental health institutions in the nation? They are found inside jails like in New York City’s Riker’s Island, Cook’s County, and Los Angeles County. Because the existing system withholds treatment until a mentally ill person becomes dangerous to themselves or others, police officers are forced to act as the front line in mental health work. Instead of treating the illness, people call the police and if things go relatively well, the ill person is arrested for things like loitering, shoplifting, or public urinating. Too often though, they get shot instead.

Riker's Island Correctional Facility

The lack of services is exacerbated by the lack of training. Many officers are ambivalent about being the front-line of mental health services, seeing it as outside their mandate to protect the safety of the public, and that caring for the mentally ill is properly the mandate of the healthcare system. This attitude is reinforced by the lack of training available to police officers about recognizing mental illness, mental health crisis intervention, and lack of contact or cooperation from mental health and emergency services. Police are trained to respond to criminal threats with shows of force and authority, which can escalate a crisis for a person suffering a breakdown. The resulting injuries and deaths are traumatic both for the officers, but especially for the victim, their friends and family, and the wider community as a whole.

The Washington Post reports that most of the mentally ill killed by police are men, and over half of them white. Most of them died close to home. Often, the police are called by family members who are overwhelmed and worried about their relative’s erratic behavior. For example, Yvonne Mote of Alabama dialed 911 in March of last year hoping the police could help her schizophrenic brother, Shane Watkins. He was shot and killed by police instead. While an average of nine out of ten of the mentally ill confronted by police were armed with some kind of weapon, they were mostly less lethal than firearms, including toy guns, or knives, or even pens. A percentage of these people are military or police veterans suffering PTSD as well. And according to the data maintained by the FBI and other organizations, only three officers have been killed by edged weapons in the past decade. However, of the thousands killed by police over the years, only a few officers have been prosecuted. For example, Dallas police officers John Rogers and Andrew Hutchins were not indicted for killing mentally ill Jason Harrison for holding a screwdriver in Dallas in 2014.

Jason Harrison

Some police departments have changed their policies. One such is the Las Vegas police department, who adopted a use-of-force policy in 2009 that put the highest premium on the “sanctity of human life,” which stresses proportionality as a guiding principle to limit the use of force. Four years in, the police shootings have fallen by nearly half. However, restrictive policies are not a panacea, as while they lead to fewer injuries for officer and civilian alike, they also lead to more crime.

While it is tempting to advocate rebuilding both the law enforcement and healthcare systems from the ground up, it isn’t practical advice. A number of communities have recognized the terrible situation for what it is, and developed programs that foster collaboration between police and mental health service providers, with noticeable success. These programs can take a variety of forms, such as mobile teams of police and mental health professionals to respond to crisis events, reception centers where specially trained officers can address persons suspected of having mental illness, crisis intervention teams, and joint protocols between police and mental health clinics or hospitals. Police are trained to de-escalate a situation and increase meaningful communication, including nonverbal communication skills, such as recognizing body language and active listening, alongside verbal communication skills that focused on tone of voice, portrayed empathy, and establishing rapport, rather than the opposite. It is a drastic shift in culture and behavior of traditional policing.

Mental Health Liaison officer Grant Humerickhouse (right) assists
 training with the Madison Police Department

In communities where such programs have been instituted, such as in Houston, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee, and Akron, Ohio, results of implementing these programs have been positive. Results have included getting those in need access to the support they lack, including crisis centers. Individuals referred to mental health services experienced less frequent contact with the police, and in cases where police transported people in need to crisis centers and hospitals, an increased percentage of those transportations were voluntary rather than involuntary, and family members have reported greater comfort in calling the police to request help for a loved one, as well as openly acknowledge the mental illness of their relative. And the police department incurred fewer costs, including less frequent mobilization of high-cost SWAT teams. Interestingly enough, the average number of mental health calls also tended to increase, but the amount of time spent on each call decreased, along with a decreased use of force. This shows that trained officers were better able to both recognize and handle calls that involved individuals with mental illness.

However, relatively few officers have received crisis intervention training, nor is this policy pursued across the country. Combined with the cutbacks in mental health service, the future of more such collaborations looks shaky. That leaves too many people dangerously vulnerable, with nowhere else to turn.

Images courtesy of Daily Mail, Yelp, and the Madison, Wisconsin Police Department

Works Cited

Cordner, Gary. "Center for Problem-Oriented Policing." Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. SUNY: University at Albany, 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Corey, E. Fuller, Dr. "Law Enforcement Interactions with Mentally Ill." Law Enforcement Interactions with Mentally Ill. Mental Illness Policy, 2011. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Kindy, Kimberly, Marc Fisher, Julie Tate, and Jennifer Jenkins. "A Year of Reckoning: Police Fatally Shoot Nearly 1,000." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 26 Dec. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

King, Shaun. "American Tragedy: At Least 50% of Police Shooting Victims Struggled with Mental Illness." Daily Kos. Daily Kos, 5 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Krameddine, Yasmeen I., and Peter H. Silverstone. "How to Improve Interactions between Police and the Mentally Ill." Frontiers in Psychiatry. Frontiers Media S.A., 14 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Landsberg, Gerald. "Neglected Issues -- Police Killings of the Mentally Ill and the Lack of Police and Mental Health Relations." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Apr. 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Lennard, Natasha. "Half of People Shot by Police Are Mentally Ill, Investigation Finds." Saloncom RSS. Salon.com, 10 Dec. 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Lowery, Wesley, Kimberly Kindy, Keith L. Alexander, Julie Tate, Jennifer Jenkins, and Steven Rich. "Distraught People, Deadly Results: Fatal Shootings by On-duty Police Officers." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 30 June 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"Mental Health Liaison/Officer Programs." Special Units. City of Madison Police Department, 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"Of All U.S. Police Shootings, One-Quarter Reportedly Involve The Mentally Ill." NPR. NPR, 04 July 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"People Living with Mental Illness Propose Improvements to Interactions with Police in Canada." PsycEXTRA Dataset (2005): n. pag. Canadian Mental Health Association, Mar. 2005. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Reuland, Melissa, Matthew Schwarzfeld, and Laura Draper. "Law Enforcement Responses to People with Mental Illnesses: A GUIDE TO RESEARCH-INFORMED POLICY AND PRACTICE." Council of State Governments Justice Center (2009): n. pag. Council of State Governments Justice Center. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Szabo, Liz. "People with Mental Illness 16 times More Likely to Be Killed by Police." USA Today. Gannett, 10 Dec. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Teller, Jennifer L.S., Mark R. Munetz, Karen M. Gil, and Christian Ritter. "Crisis Intervention Team Training for Police Officers Responding to Mental Disturbance Calls." PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES 57.2 (2006): n. pag. Ps.psychiatryonline.org. PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES, Feb. 2006. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Tellier, Stephen. "Officers Push for Increased Mental Health Training Funding after 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Investigation." KSTP.com. ABC Eyewitness News, 01 Mar. 2016. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Watson, Amy C., Melissa Schaefer Morabito, Jeffrey Draine, and Victor Ottati. "Improving Police Response to Persons with Mental Illness: A Multi-level Conceptualization of CIT." International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 15 July 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Wilonsky, Robert. "Dallas County Grand Jury Declines to Indict Officers Who Killed Man Holding Screwdriver." The Dallas Morning News Crime Blog. The Dallas Morning News, 23 Apr. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Mental Health First Aid

Guest Post by Kristin DiMiceli, LMSW

What would you do if you are walking down the street and see someone fall & potentially break a bone? If you are a considerate human being, you might run over to help them and/or call someone for help. Now think about a situation where you are walking & see someone in emotional distress: leaning over, breathing heavily, crying, & looking a bit disoriented. There are a variety of ways one might respond, but think about your initial feelings when imagining this scenario. One might turn the other way, try to solve the problem, or start to look panic stricken themselves. It doesn’t feel as clear cut as when you are addressing a medical problem, right?

To help solve this problem, the National Council for Behavioral Health (NCBH) started a movement to train people in Mental Health First Aid. This training was first created in Australia in 2001 by a nurse, Betty Kitchener, & a mental health literacy professor, Tony Jorm. It has been adapted in 23 other countries & was started in the United States in 2008. The NCBH has trained over 500,000 people, & is working towards the goal of reaching 1 million people with the help of Congress putting $15 million towards their cause. Their training sessions are conducted all over the United States to address helping adults & youth who may be experiencing emotional distress.

As a Licensed Social Worker working in the mental health field, I feel that this is a very important movement that will not only help people find ways to help those in need mentally, but to also reduce the stigma that is so heavily ingrained in our society regarding mental health. Whether we mean to or not, we tend to shy away from helping those who are in need due to mental health problems. First Aiders are trained to address individuals who may be suicidal, experiencing a panic attack, or using drugs.

With this training, one can at least try to help those in need by pointing them in the right direction using the Mental Health First Aid acronym, ALGEE. It stands for:

1. Assess
2. Listen non-judgmentally
3. Give reassurance and information
4. Encourage appropriate professional help
5. Encourage self-help and other support strategies.     

There is no quick fix in the moment, but at least the individual is being addressed & recognized, as opposed to being ignored. You never know if you might be the catalyst for a more positive path in their life. This Mental Health First Aid training is excellent for a variety of professionals, from police officers to teachers, as well as lay people. You don’t have to be a medical professional to give the Heimlich Maneuver & you don’t have to be a mental health clinician to give Mental Health First Aid.   

For more information and to sign up for training sessions, check out MentalHealthFirstAid.org.

Also, don’t be afraid to call 911 if you feel someone may need to be further evaluated.  Emergency rooms can evaluate individuals if they appear to need to be admitted.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.