The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the nation’s largest grassroots organization of people living with mental illness and their families. NAMI served on the advisory group for the 2009 IACP National Policy Summit on improving responses to people with mental illness, and its staff and members were delighted to contribute to this effort. The IACP’s leadership on this issue has created greater momentum for outstanding community policing approaches to mental health crises.

NAMI has worked with communities across the country on the creation of crisis intervention teams (CITs): community programs that help law enforcement join forces with mental health providers and families to find a better way to resolve mental health crises. NAMI is ready to assist police executives in implementing the recommendations made in the 2009 IACP National Policy Summit report, Building Safer Communities: Improving Police Response to Persons with Mental Illness.