Crisis Intervention Team Assessment Center

At Virginia Beach Community Services Board, the Crisis Intervention Team Assessment Center provides a location that a law enforcement can take a person in crisis for access to treatment and quickly return to regular law enforcement duties. Assessment sites serve as a therapeutic, non-criminal justice affiliated alternative to incarceration.

Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs) are designed to reduce negative interactions between individuals with serious behavioral health disorders and law enforcement officers, including incidents of violence, and to divert individuals from punitive incarceration to appropriate medical treatment. CITs are formed through the collaboration of behavioral health providers, law enforcement agencies, family members of individuals with behavioral health disorders and the individuals themselves. This coalition develops plans to address systems issues, including the best way to transfer someone from law enforcement custody to behavioral health treatment and crisis intervention situations. Law enforcement officers learn how to recognize and de-escalate a psychiatric crisis to prevent injury or death.