Thanks to a $6,000 grant from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company, a group of five volunteers from Helena will travel to Memphis this spring to receive training in crisis intervention for mentally ill men and women.

According to Mignon Waterman, one of the coordinators of the effort, the training is another step on the path to addressing the community's mental health dilemma.

"I'm excited about this training," Waterman said on Monday, explaining that the participants will return to Helena to instruct their peers and help formulate a local solution.

In addition to being a former legislator, Waterman serves as vice-chairwoman for the Mental Health Oversight Advisory Council.

The mental health crisis in Helena -- and across the state -- was several years in the making, but came to a head in Helena in 2002.

At that time, St. Peter's Hospital closed its mental health division after losing two of the psychiatrists who manned the short-term, acute-care facility. On average, the unit provided assistance to about 400 patients a year.

The closure left the community without such services, so officials were forced to direct mentally ill men and women to crisis units in other communities, to the jail, or to Warm Springs State Hospital.

Those diversions have resulted in problems that apply pressure in areas ranging from law enforcement to the medical profession.

In the 1980s, Memphis found itself in a similar predicament and the Memphis Police Department developed the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) to help address the problem.

The program partners law enforcement officials with representatives of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), mental health providers and consumers to respond to crisis events related to mental illness and suicide issues.

Waterman secured a $7,000 grant through the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to send local representatives from NAMI, law enforcement, St. Peter's Hospital and Golden Triangle to attend an introduction to CIT training in Memphis late last year.

Those same individuals will attend the more in-depth, 40-hour session in April that will provide them with the background to educate their fellow officers on how to handle crisis situations involving mentally ill men and women.

According to Waterman, the session participants will train 30 law enforcement officers on their return to Helena, and that training will ultimately expand to include other involved parties.

Upon completing the training in Memphis, Waterman hopes the participants will be able to make suggestions to the local advisory council about how to provide better crisis services to men and women in need.

"The next step needs to be to develop a county-wide plan of how to respond to mental health crisis," she said. "We need to develop a comprehensive plan like we do for subdivisions and firefighting."

Waterman is encouraged that funding for mental health crisis stabilization services is currently working its way through the legislature.

However, as a former senator, she knows that no guarantees exist that the money will survive the process. Just the same, Waterman wants Helena to be ready to be a competitor for the cash if the legislation is successful.

Officials who have been wrestling with the local mental health crisis agree that some type of facility will be necessary to de-escalate various situations, but exactly how that will look has yet to be defined.

"I'm nervous that Helena's not going to get its act together in time" to seek funding should it be approved by the Legislature, she said.

Waterman emphasized Monday that, even though legislators are attempting to assist with the financial challenges associated with helping mentally ill men and women, the momentum to solve this problem needs to come from within the community.

"I have no doubt this community will come together to see that this crisis intervention comes off," she said in a previous interview. "We just need to make sure we're all working together."