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 Cary
Chapter PBA member Donna Pell was
recognized as the Crisis Intervention
Team Officer of the Year for the Cary
Police Department on Friday, October 10,
2008 at a luncheon and awards ceremony
in Raleigh. The luncheon and awards
ceremony was an opportunity for the
National Alliance on Mental Health-Wake
to demonstrate its support and
appreciation for Wake County law
enforcement officers who serve as Crisis
Intervention Team officers. Police
officers are often called on to respond
to crisis situations involving persons
with serious mental illness. Based on a
program first established in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1988, the CIT program is a
pre-booking jail diversion program. The
overall goal of the CIT training program
is to treat mental illness as a disease,
not a crime. CIT officers receive forty
hours of specialized training in mental
illness, crisis intervention and
resource education so that they will be
better-prepared to work with the
individual in crisis. The objective is
to get the individual to the appropriate
resource for appropriate care. The first
North Carolina CIT program began in Wake
County in 2005. It is a community-based
collaboration between those individuals
with mental health issues, their
families, law enforcement agencies, the
Wake County Local Managing Entity, and
the National Alliance on Mental Health.
Numerous law enforcement agencies in
Wake County – at NAMI’s request,
selected an officer or a group of
officers for the “Officer of the Year”
award from CIT officers within their
agency. Officer Pell was nominated by
Sgt. Shawn Anderson. The nomination
highlighted specific cases where Officer
Pell distinguished herself through her
performance. He also noted
her exemplary grasp of the concept of
treating mental illness as a disease and
not as a crime. According to Anderson,
“Through her caring and sympathetic, but
firm approach to assisting mental health
consumers and their respective family
members during periods of crisis, she
has further contributed to reducing the
associative stigma of mental illness. In addition, from those
selections, NAMI-Wake County chose an
“Officer of the Year” from those
nominations. Pell is originally from Mt.
Airy. She graduated from North Surry
High School and took classes at Surry
Community College before completing
basic law enforcement training in 2002.
Officer Pell started with the Cary Police
department that same year. She was named
the Field Operations Officer of the
Month in September of 2008. She
currently is assigned to Field
Operations and also serves as a Field
Training Officer.
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