Law enforcement interaction and response to individuals with mental health issues has been at the forefront of public concern, both within California and nationwide.  Incidents involving persons with disabilities has resulted in extensive media coverage and community inquiries regarding the law enforcement response to mental health events and the training standards for law enforcement officers handling such incidents.  

Further exacerbating the situation is the ever-increasing community reliance on law enforcement to assist with mental health crises that in the past were handled by the mental health or medical industry. This significant shift in professional responsibility and greater societal expectation of law enforcement has prompted the Legislature to require additional mental health training for law enforcement.  

On October 03, 2015, Governor Brown, signed into law Senate Bill 29 (Beall), which mandated additional mental health response training for law enforcement officers (Attachment A).

Senate Bill 29 added section 13515.29 to the Penal Code, requiring POST to include four hours of instruction on how to interact with persons with mental illness or intellectual disability to the existing 40-hour Field Training Officer (FTO) course on or before August 1, 2016. The new mandate requires that the training include classroom instruction and instructor-led active learning, such as scenario-based training, which shall address issues related to stigma, and shall be culturally relevant and appropriate. 

Senate Bill 29 also added section 13515.295 to the Penal Code, requiring POST to conduct a review and evaluation of the required competencies of the Field Training Program (FTP) and Police Training Program (PTP) to identify areas where additional training is necessary to better prepare law enforcement officers to effectively address incidents involving persons with a mental illness or intellectual disability.

To address this issue, as well as mandates of a related bill (SB11) that addresses mental health training in the Regular Basic Course, the POST Basic Training Bureau (BTB) staff began curriculum evaluation and development when the legislation was first introduced. 

POST staff facilitated numerous meetings with subject matter experts (SME’s) from a variety of disciplines, which included participation by a member of Senator Beall’s staff, to ensure that training needed in this area addressed the concerns of the Legislature, mental health organizations and mental health consumers, as well as law enforcement.  To address the newly enacted hourly mandate of SB 29, BTB, in consultation with field training SME’s determined the best course of action would be to modify existing scenario based content of the current FTO course to focus the learning on mental health issues.  BTB is collaborating with the Learning Technology Bureau (LTR) to develop and update existing scenario material to introduce the required mental health criteria and make the content more contemporary.  The scenarios will be featured in instructor-led student activities.  The planning meetings for the scenario video development are ongoing throughout Spring of 2016, and the project will be completed by the August 1, 2016 deadline.

As a result of the Penal Code section 13515.29, Commission Procedure D-13-4 defining minimum content of the Field Training and Police Training Officer Course needs to be amended (Attachment B).

POST staff and subject matter experts also conducted a review and evaluation of the required competencies of the Field Training Program (FTP) and Police Training Program (PTP) to identify areas where additional training is necessary to better prepare law enforcement officers to effectively address incidents involving persons with a mental illness or intellectual disability.

As required in new Penal Code section 13515.295, the Field Training Officer and Police Training Officer program must include specified content which will be incorporated into Commission Procedure D-13-3, Field Training Program Minimum Content Requirements (Attachment B).

The State of California currently has over 450 POST approved Field Training Programs, and incorporation of the added content would technically require resubmission by all affected agencies of their entire program packages, with commensurate evaluation and approval by POST staff. This process could cause significant delays in agencies being able to start field training.   To prevent delays in update approvals and to provide a resolution to meet the required deadline, POST staff has developed a supplemental training block for the existing Field Training /Police Training manual for agencies to incorporate into their program, as well as an attestation form for each respective agency to verify compliance by including the mental health competencies into their field training programs.

POST's response to additional in-service training requirements in SB 29 and SB 11 is addressed in a separate agenda item submitted by the Training Program Services Bureau.

This item is supported by Strategic Plan Objective A.1: California law enforcement agencies are prepared to address emerging trends and challenges.