| Crisis ResponsePrograms and TrainingProviding Technical Assistance and Training for Crisis Response Systems Worldwide |
About Us
We are a group of individuals who have dedicated our professional lives to reforming crisis response systems throughout the world. We come from law enforcement, mental healthcare services, advocacy organizations, academia, and lived experience.
Each of us have decades of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) experience and have led organizations or programs dedicated to those philosophies. Each of us have experience with the development of, research of, or providing services for crisis response.
Our goal is to advocate for best practices of crisis response while transforming systems through training at every crisis response intercept point. Together, we believe our mission of reforming crisis response systems worldwide to make them the most compassionate, most effective, and least intrusive in the lives of those who are challenged by behavioral health disorders who may enter into crises, can be realized!
Meet the Leadership Team
Amy Watson, PhD President Dr. Amy Watson is a Professor at the Wayne State University School of Social Work. For the past two decades, her research has focused on police encounters with persons with mental illnesses and the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model. Dr. Watson has also conducted research and provided consultation to programs serving persons with mental illnesses with criminal legal system involvement. These include CIT programs, mental health courts, and prison reentry programs. She is currently the President of the Board of Directors of Crisis Response Programs and Training. Dr. Watson served on the CIT International Board of Directors from 2016-2021, as President of the Board 2020-2021. Earlier in her career, she worked as a probation officer on a team serving clients with serious mental illnesses and as a Forensic Social Worker/Mitigation Specialist working on death penalty cases. She has a BA in Criminal Justice from Aurora University and an AM and PhD from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. |
Don Kamin, PhD Vice President Dr. Don Kamin is a clinical psychologist who collaborates with law enforcement, behavioral health system representatives, and other community partners to address the needs of individuals with mental illness and their family members through system reform, improved collaboration, and training initiatives. He has held a variety of positions at the interface of the mental health and criminal justice systems. He was also a Police Academy Instructor and helped develop the first Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program in New York in 2004. Currently, as the Director of the Institute for Police, Mental Health & Community Collaboration, Dr. Kamin is leading the effort to develop CIT programs across New York. He also coordinates a telehealth project that connects police intervening with individuals in crisis to mental health professionals via iPads. Dr. Kamin is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center and an Adjunct Professor of Criminal Justice at Roberts Wesleyan College. He was on the Board of Directors of CIT International from 2015 through 2020. He is a co-author of “Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Programs: A Best Practice Guide for Transforming Community Responses to Mental Health Crises.” Although he spends most of this time in New York, Dr. Kamin has worked in many other states and conducted CIT-related work in Liberia, West Africa in 2020. Dr. Kamin is a graduate of Vassar College and received a doctorate in clinical psychology from Ohio University. He completed pre-doctoral training at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine/University Hospitals of Cleveland and post-doctoral training in forensic psychology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Kamin has received several awards recognizing his work from law enforcement departments and advocacy organizations. |
Glen Blackwell, CF Secretary Glen Beck Blackwell has over thirty years of frontline policing experience with the Western Australia Police Force (WAPF). The last six years has seen him working in the trial and roll out of WAPF's Mental Health Co-Response crisis intervention model. This saw his team awarded the 2018 WA Police Excellence Award and 2018 Mental Health Commissioners Award. Currently, Glen is appointed as WAPF's first and only full-time policing mental health trainer, seeing him develop and deliver training to frontline police officers, police support, staff, and Authorised Mental Health Practitioners. Glen was awarded a Churchill Fellowship which afforded him the opportunity to travel through Canada, United States of America, and United Kingdom where he was able to embed with several jurisdictions' behavioural health crisis programs. This allowed him access to take part in diversionary practices, training programs, non-law enforcement responses, reactive crisis, co-response, and proactive high utiliser teams. His report from this fellowship is published on the Winston Churchill Trust (Australia) website. Glen has also completed a Master of Leadership with the University of Notre Dame Australia with his academic writing focusing on policing behavioural health crisis. |
Chris Roup Treasurer / Director of Programs Chris Roup is a board member and serves the corporation as Director of Programs. Recently, she was Director of Programs for CIT International. She has been involved with crisis intervention team programs for the past nine years. As a crisis response systems coordinator, Chris has participated in multiple Sequential Intercept Model mapping processes contributing as a key stakeholder for the local community as a mental health advocate. She has also co-coordinated, as well as presented as an instructor, many CIT training classes for law enforcement and other first responder agencies. Prior to joining CIT International, she was the Executive Director of the Fresno affiliate of NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness, a community benefit organization for 8 years. Christina has over 32 years of community benefit organization leadership, serving as a board member and executive staff leadership. Prior to her executive leadership with NAMI Fresno, Christina spent over 20 years in the banking industry as a Vice President specializing in relationships with community benefit organizations. |
Ron L. Bruno Chief Executive Officer Ron Bruno serves the corporation as the Chief Executive Officer. Ron is a three-time currently appointed member of the Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee, a federal committee that reports to the United States Congress making recommendations for better coordinated federal efforts of mental healthcare services. Ron brings to this position, and appointment, a twenty-five-year law enforcement career where he specialized in crisis response and working with persons with a mental illness who had involvement in the criminal justice system. Ron is a founding board member of two nonprofit organizations dedicated to CIT program development: CIT International and CIT Utah. Ron served both corporations as their first Executive Director. Ron has also been the Director of CTS Services, LLC, an organization that developed and provided de-escalation training for law enforcement and other disciplines. Ron is a co-author of CIT International’s “Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Programs: A Best Practice Guide for Transforming Community Responses to Mental Health Crises”.
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Now Taking Applications
Crisis Response Programs and Training, Inc. is a new organization dedicated to crisis response system reform and training at all crisis response intercept points. We are accepting applications from those interested in serving as a board member representing countries worldwide. In an attempt to greatly diversify our board of directors, we are only accepting applications from individuals representing countries other than the United States at this time.
If you have been involved in crisis response system reform, have experience with training others at any crisis intercept point, have a desire to enhance crisis services at the community level, the vision to work on these issues globally, and have the energy to assist developing this organization from the ground level, please reach out and let us know of your interest.
Please send an email letting us know of your desire to serve in this most important role to Admin@CRPTinc.org
