When police and others respond to crises involving people with mental-health issues, it is critical the officers be properly trained to deal with those situations.

That is the belief driving Kennebec Valley Organization to seek commitments from police and other first responders to get special training offered free of charge by NAMI-Maine, the Maine branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

Kennebec Valley Organization, established last year, includes people from religious organizations, union locals and community groups from Gardiner to Skowhegan who work together to help improve life in the county.

The group has identified mental-health issues and jobs as priorities. A special committee identified mental-health crisis response as a critical issue facing the county.

About 65 members of the organization met at Sacred Heart Church to ask representatives of the Kennebec and Somerset county sheriff's departments and some police departments if they will commit to having officers receive or continue receiving CIT (Crisis Intervention Team Training) from NAMI.

Where CIT has been used, such as in Portland, documented outcomes include decreased officer injury rates, use of force, seclusion, restraint in emergency rooms and arrests of people with mental illness, according to organization members.

KVO seeks to connect officers more closely with local service providers and teach them how to recognize and defuse situations involving people in mental-health crisis, including those who are depressed, suicidal, violent or having delusions.

Randall Liberty, chief deputy of the Kennebec County Sheriff's Department, said KSO is committed to the philosophy of CIT and to having officers trained. Twenty officers -- including Liberty -- already are certified, he said.

Asked if he will commit to sending at least one officer to CIT training in the fall and whether he will commit to ensuring that each shift at the department have an officer certified in the training, Oakland police Chief Michael Tracy said he would.

"Our mission as police is to protect and serve and there's no better way to protect and serve than to thoroughly be trained in what we do," he said.