Law & Order column: Lake County mental health-law enforcement collaboration reaches milestone chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Public health officials in DuPage County think they ve found a way to improve mental health care that reduces emergency room visits, gets people the help they need and helps keep some facing arrest out of the county jail with a behavioral health crisis hub at the county complex in Wheaton.
Since last February, a program that partners police officers with social workers to form mental health crisis response units has offered help to more than 1,200 Lake County residents.
The Lake County Health Department is hiring a new kind of first responders ones sent out to engage county residents who are in a mental health crisis and connect them quickly to the help they need.
Early next year, the Lake County sheriff s office and six local police departments will launch a new program that will team deputies and police officers with a social worker, clinician or peer specialist to form a sort of rapid response unit for calls involving a mental health crisis.