Area police departments are all making efforts to beef up their staffs with mental-health professionals to assist officers on patrol, but it’s a process.
Champaign County Sheriff’s Office
“We are partnering with the Regional Planning Commission for a full-time social worker,” said Sheriff Dustin Heuerman, who hopes to have that person hired by the end of February.
That person will be stationed in the department and can go on calls with deputies when available and appropriate, but will primarily do follow-up with affected parties to connect them with community resources, Heuerman said.
Urbana police
Chief Bryant Seraphin said his department has been working for several months on a program it calls
“One Door,” a sort of convenient care for people having an emotional crisis.
“The idea … is to have a co-responder model available when we have incidents as opposed to a social worker who does follow-up the next day,” Seraphin said. “To build something that big takes a while.”
Lt. Joel Sanders, who’s been doing the research for the department, is retiring in a month, adding to the delay.
“That slowed our roll. It’s still alive and there are multiple partners in this,” Seraphin said. “Making sure everyone is working together is a challenge.”
Champaign police
Deputy Chief Dave Shaffer said the majority of patrol officers have received crisis-intervention training and work cooperatively with mental-health and social-service agencies. However, the department doesn’t have dedicated social workers on staff.
Conversations about co-responder models have been happening and will continue, Shaffer said.
The city council has a study session Tuesday dedicated to discussing what the future of policing in Champaign should be, including how to respond to mental-health calls.
Rantoul Police
Deputy Chief Justin Bouse said his department has had a social worker on staff for about 16 years, funded by grants, to help those with who aren’t committing serious crimes but are often the subject of calls related to mental issues.
Bouse said the department recently created an in-house team, led by a veteran sergeant, dedicated to working on mental-health issues.
“They can set the direction, do the follow-up and do the oversight,” he said.
Mary Schenk
