Crisis in the Hallways: A Qualitative Study of Mental Health Crisis Intervention Training for School Resource Officers

Abstract

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand perceptions held by School Resource Officers (SROs) of their personal ability to intervene during a mental health crisis on campus. SROs are uniquely positioned to quickly identify and intervene during a mental health crisis situation if properly training. Currently, training mandated for South Carolina SROs does not contain de-escalation skills and leaves officers with low confidence of their ability, based on training, to adequately intervene. While crisis intervention training is available to officers, such as Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), it does not address students in the educational setting. Crisis intervention training in the school setting is crucial to stem the tide of ever-increasing numbers of students with mental illness being inappropriately referred to the criminal justice system, expelled from school, hospitalized or, in many cases, a combination of all of these. Furthermore, the training must be presented in a method resulting in the highest level of knowledge retention and self-confidence by the officer employing the training in real-life situations. Utilizing an anonymous online survey and interviews, this research discovered significant role ambiguity among 13 participants. A lack of adequate crisis intervention training as well as the lack of collaboration between SROs and schools to develop response protocols during mental health crisis episodes were also noted. Although participants desired training, the study found SROs perceived a lack of training with regards to the handling of students experiencing a mental health crisis. Lacking proper training and protocols, officers lacked critical support needed to help all students in the schools, perpetuating the school to prison pipeline. Additional research is needed to further discover methods to adequately equip SROs in the collaborative effort to help students.