City, county leaders support Columbia Police getting mental health co-responders
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Leaders from Columbia and Boone County expressed support and gratitude for the city's efforts to get behavioral health co-responders for the Columbia Police Department.
Columbia Police Department has sought bids for behavioral health co-responders to help with mental health calls. The bidding applications closed Monday for a program Columbia wants to implement that would create behavioral health co-responder positions. The co-responders would go with police to mental health calls in an effort to de-escalate the situation.
According to the bidding documents, the city set aside just under $600,000 for the program. The documents are unclear on where that funding comes from, whether it's a grant or part of the budget. The department already has a mental health liaison paid for by the state but that service isn't always available, according to the request for proposals.
Boone County Commissioner Janet Thompson is an outspoken advocate for keeping those with mental health issues out of jails.
"So it's really just an awareness that mental health issues are, you know, our potential issue in the a lot of the calls that come in and have the appropriate training and and constant training for our folks that are our first responders," Thompson said.
Thompson said Boone County Sheriff's Department offers training to any first responders in the area on how to handle mental health crisis.
"We joined the Stepping Up initiative in 2015 and all of that is geared towards making, you know, trying to get trying to minimize the number of people with mental health challenges who are in our county jails because that's what's that's what happens if you don't do it right," Thompson said.
Ward 5 Councilman Don Waterman said this is a program the city has been looking into for the better part of the past decade.
"This goes back to back in 2015 or '16, and Geoff Jones -- before he became chief -- was working to try to establish or have co-responders with the police," Waterman said. "But they could not, because of pay and various other reasons, couldn't get it set up within the police department."
Despite only recently learning about the program, Waterman supports the plan, having run on a platform of providing better mental health and policing.
"I think it just goes to show that the police department is working and trying to adopt some of the programs that have been called for, such as this co-responders," Waterman said.
