Law enforcement officer across North Carolina are receiving new training on how to deal with the mentally ill. New training helps officers to handle those with mental illnesses before the situation escalates and potentially gets violent.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) worked with several groups to rewrite the training on mental illness, which went in to affect across North Carolina on July 1. Belmont Police Chief Charlie Franklin told News 14 Carolina that the training is definitely making a difference.

"Police officers that go through the crisis intervention training, they learn to listen better,  they learn to focus on de-escalating, recognizing the power and authority that they have to actually escalate a situation."

NAMI members says the goal is to have 100 officers go through the new mental health training each year. So far, they said 400 officers in Mecklenburg County have completed the course.