The overland park (KS) police department (oppd) is utilizing a collaborative approach to address emerging mental and behavioral health issues

The Overland Park Police Department in Overland Park, Kansas will utilize a $232,154 grant award from the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services program to enhance its crisis intervention and behavioral health services. Specifically, the funding will allow the police department to achieve Crisis Intervention Team agency certification, hire two additional co-responders to provide around-the-clock crisis response, and send two crisis intervention team members to relevant conferences and training on applied suicide interpretation skills. Achieving these deliverables will help the Overland Park Police Department strengthen its collaborative approach to addressing emerging mental and behavioral health issues through expanded crisis response capabilities.

Oppd currently has a behavioral health unit composed of 3 CO-responders, 1 crisis intervention team (CIT) coordinator, one CIT officer, and one CIT sergeant. The city utilizes a memorandum of understanding with the johnson county mental health center (jcmhc) for the provision of CO-responder services. Oppd is seeking grant funding to address the following: achieve crisis CIT agency program certification: CIT international provides CIT programs the opportunity to receive certification through a structured assessment and feedback process. Hire two (2) CO-responders: hiring two additional CO-responders will provide better coverage in reaching individuals experiencing a mental health crisis and move the BHU towards its goal of providing around the clock service. Provide specialized training for crisis intervention team members: send 2 CIT team members to the CIT international conference, national CO-responder conference, and applied suicide interpretation skills (asist) training in 2022 and 2023.