National Alliance on Mental Illness walk in Fort Myers Saturday

Writer: Joey Pellegrino
Published: Updated:

A critical resource for identifying early signs of mental illness in your children, local school resource officers are going through crisis intervention training through the Lee County National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The classes not only helps officers look for signs of mental illness, it equips officers with the skills to defuse tense situations, no matter where they are.

Cape Coral police officer Jamie Bungard works at Oasis Middle School, and he says at that age, his kids need mental health support.

“Maybe this is the very first onset and we are seeing it at the school level,” Bungard said. “The training helps me look for things to identify, what we could be dealing with here, and it also opens up avenues for assistance we can offer. NAMI has really opened my eyes to what we can offer them in the community, as far as to help them and help the kids.”

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