International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc.
Lieutenant Steven Thomas
Anne Arundel County Police
Crisis Intervention Team Coordinator
I am honored and humbled to be a member of the ICISF Board of Directors. I utilize the CISM skills and procedures I learned from ICISF daily, as part of the Community Policing Bureau of the Anne Arundel County Police Department. Being on the ICISF Board of Directors is an opportunity to give back for all that ICISF has given to me, the Anne Arundel County Police Department and my community.
I graduated from UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) with a Bachelor Degree in Political Science and Sociology. I then attended the University of Baltimore, where I received a Master’s Degree in Legal and Ethical Studies. My education gave me a foundation of understanding that police departments must go back to our roots as public servants. Police Officers must return to the mentality that we are “Peace Officers” and we have a duty “be helpful, not hurtful” to the communities we serve.
I started my law enforcement career with the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office in 1992 and have been with the Anne Arundel County Police Department since 1996. I was promoted to Sergeant in 2004 and then Lieutenant in 2010. I remained in patrol my entire career until 2016 when I was transferred to my current position as CIT Coordinator at Anne Arundel County Crisis Response.
In 2012, as a patrol shift commander, I started an initiative with community members to help homeless families and children at Christmas. In 2013 we continued helping the families at Christmas with the assistance of Anne Arundel County Crisis Response. With this “hands on experience” in community policing and having already partnered with Anne Arundel County Crisis Response I was tasked in January 2014 with starting the police CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) Unit and Peer Support Teams.
Our CIT Unit is a Model for fully integrating law enforcement and mental health services utilizing the skills and procedures of CISM taught by ICISF. The Anne Arundel County CIT unit is an intricate part of the Anne Arundel County Crisis System, which was created 1999. Crisis Response utilizes the concept of CISM daily assisting not only first responders, but the community. Police Officers daily request Crisis Response Clinicians to assist them after traumatic incidents and when community members are in crisis due to mental health challenges. We routinely utilize CISM and the SAFER-R in our community policing model.
We apply the SAFER-R and the CISM principle of PIE (proximity, immediacy and expectancy) to help those with substance use addiction and lead them to recovery with our Safe Stations Initiative. Anyone can go to any Anne Arundel County or City of Annapolis firehouse or police station for assistance with substance use addiction. There are 41 community entry points for help and assistance is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when the person is ready and wants help. The person is assisted with maslovian needs, their individual recovery plan is formulated and they are assured they are not alone, and others have successfully recovered from addiction. Safe Stations has built a strong foundation bridging the recovery community and the police department furthering trust between both.
I am an ICISF approved instructor and faculty member, in addition to being a Youth & Adult Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Instructor. Further, I am a Maryland MHFA co-instructor for instructor training, and at the 2018 Mental Health First Aid Summit in Washington D.C. I was named a “top 100” instructor in the nation.
I have received numerous commendations from the Anne Arundel County Police Department including two silver stars, a community service award and the Chiefs Award for Job Excellence. However the award I am most proud of is In August 2020 CIT International awarded the Anne Arundel County CIT Unit as the CIT Unit of the Year. The success of our unit is due to applying the skills, principles and procedures of CISM to help the community every day.
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