Johnson County will have a new crisis treatment option for troubled youths who now are typically being sent to juvenile detention, county commissioners decided Thursday.
The seven-member commission unanimously agreed to accept a state grant that will add 14.6 full-time equivalent positions to staff an alternative to detention.
The treatment center will help juveniles avoid the “revolving door” of repeated interactions with police, said Tim DeWeese, director of the Johnson County Mental Health Center.
Last year, about 1,400 juveniles in crisis were referred to detention, he said. That process often doesn’t help and can make matters worse when they are released, he added.
“This will provide us 72 hours to work with the families and the young person, have them be separated, have everything calm down, and then begin to pull together a plan that the family can be successful and hopefully engage in services,” he said.
“My hope is that the outcome would be fewer people going into detention, fewer people going into custody, fewer people into the foster care system and more people accessing immediate care,” he continued.
How is the county funding the program?
The $1.48 million grant comes from the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services to fund what will be called the Youth Crisis Stabilization Center.
Once operational, it will have six rooms with two beds in each room. The bed assignments will be based on gender and an evaluation of the most appropriate mental health treatment, DeWeese said. In some cases, a room may have only one occupant.
County officials are looking at options for the location, he said.
The county mental health department has taken over some of the first floor of the county administration building on Johnson County Square in downtown Olathe, and there are also plans to build a new Health Services building.
The grant is meant to address a significant gap in care for troubled youths, DeWeese said. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated mental health issues among minors, and Johnson County has seen a rise in the number of juveniles in the criminal justice system, according to the staff background provided to commissioners.
Some 65 to 70% of minors in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health condition, and a majority also have substance abuse problems, according to county documents.
County commissioners were generally supportive
Some commissioners emphasized they want to be sure the money is spent wisely and gets good results. Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara suggested the commission revisit the use of its properties along the 87th Street corridor as an alternative to building a new Health Services building.
But none questioned the need for additional treatment to keep so many youths out of detention.
Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick said parents who have children with behavioral issues have told her how difficult it can be.
“They don’t want to call the police because they don’t want their child arrested but they have to have some kind of intervention,” she said. “This center will provide that.”
Commissioner Michael Ashcraft noted that incarceration has its own costs.
“There’s a cost to that, both a financial and a societal and personal cost,” he said. “I think anything we can do to keep people out of the criminal justice industrial complex has long-term benefits in so many different ways.”
The new staff would include a mental health clinician team leader, behavioral health specialist manager, mental health clinician, case manager, mental health nurse, admissions coordinator and eight behavioral health specialists to provide 24-hour observation and supervision on-site.
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