Sioux County law enforcement's new mental health response team helping residents in need - Siouxland News
SIOUX COUNTY, Iowa — The mental health crisis has been a root issue for many years for law enforcement, with officers not able to fully address mental health without proper training.
In Sioux County, teamwork is making a lasting impact out on calls.
”It’s just kind of taken off lately, which has been a positive for our community," Crisis Staff Member with Seasons in Sioux Center, Janelle Hultquist said.
A mobile mental health crisis line started in Sioux County in 2018, and has grown to be the mobile health crisis program that it is today.
At Seasons, several trained staff assist officers 24/7 with mental health situations, and now go to calls with the Sheriff’s office all over Sioux County.
Captain Jamie Van Voorst says mental health has always been a hard spot for law enforcement, people with correct training are needed for certain circumstances.
“If it’s a mental thing, we can only do so much. ya know and that’s where sometimes it’s not always taking the person into custody maybe they need someone just to talk to," Van Voorst said.
Hultquist, is part of the on-call crisis staff.
When officers are on scene, the program launches into action, getting a crisis staff member to where mental health assistance in needed.
“We were able to call Janelle here who already had somewhat of a repour from the night before when this person was called in," Van Voorst said.
“He had a welfare check reported on him from the night before and refusing to talk and refusing help so that’s when they called us in and be like, “well we don’t want to just leave him with this reports were getting.” we were able to just sit and chat," Hultquist said.
Crisis staff use their training to calm and connect with the individual, creating a better outcome and providing the person with help that better suits their needs.
”Breaking that stigma down, and being able to openly talk about these things of everyone has mental health and we’re all going to struggle and it looks different for everyone," Hultquist said.
The community has seen benefits from this program already.
So far for October, Sioux County mobile crisis has had 2 calls with situations resolved.
In September, there were 6.
source: https://siouxlandnews.com/news/local/sioux-county-law-enforcements-new-mental-health-response-team-helping-residents-in-need
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