Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

SALINA — The state’s mental health system is “facing a crisis,” warned Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services Secretary Don Jordan.

The state hospitals are full, he said, and budget cuts have forced many community mental health centers to lay off staff and provide fewer services.

“Usually, at this time of year, it’s my job to go before the Legislature and talk about what we can do to make things better,” Jordan said. “But this year I’m having to try to just keep things where they are and not get any worse.”

Jordan spoke Friday during a National Alliance on Mental Illness-Kansas conference aimed at encouraging city and county police departments to adopt Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) techniques, which are designed to help police deal more effectively with the mentally ill.

National surveys have shown that roughly one of six incidents investigated by police involves someone who is mentally ill.

Jordan was joined by Kansas Department of Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz, who said 10 percent of the state’s 8,600 inmates have been diagnosed as having a serious and persistent mental illness. Another 10 percent, he said, fit the criteria but haven't been formally diagnosed.

Because some inmates’ illnesses are so severe and their behaviors so disruptive, Werholtz said, the department often finds itself committing resources to handling “a few at the extreme” rather than doing all it should to prepare other inmates for their return to the community.

“We are not adequately equipped to deal with a lot of the mental health issues that we’re expected to deal with,” he said.

Werholtz and Jordan each praised efforts to expand crisis intervention training throughout the state, noting that many of the confrontations that result in incarceration could be avoided.

“It’s important to have a law enforcement officer, when they’re called, to understand what they’re dealing with,” Jordan said.

Jordan said he wondered how many mentally ill people end up in jail for confrontations that began with them exhibiting behavior that was odd but not threatening.

“Just because that person sitting in a McDonald’s is talking to himself doesn’t mean he’s dangerous,” Jordan said.

In Kansas, law enforcement agencies in five of the state’s 105 counties – Johnson, Lyon, Reno, Sedgwick, and Shawnee – have adopted CIT training. At least 10 more are considering it or are about to start.

The participating agencies have formed the Kansas Law Enforcement CIT Council

“It’s a hard sell,” said Dennis Bosley, president of the NAMI-Kansas chapter in Topeka and a member of the Shawnee County CIT Council.

“A lot of it’s political,” Bosley said. “People think this is about someone outside of law enforcement telling the officer on the street what to do, but nothing could be further from the truth. CIT is totally about the officer being in charge.”

Some police departments and county attorneys, he said, resist the concept of treating someone who is mentally ill different than someone who is not.

“This has to be a grassroots movement,” Bosley said. “It has to come from the bottom up; it’s not going to happen from the top down.”

Michael Woody, a 25-year police officer who was instrumental in launching CIT training in Ohio, said his efforts encountered resistance on two fronts:

• Skepticism – “By their very nature, police officers are some of the most suspicious people on the face of the Earth, and in most cases, it’s a trait the serves them well,” he said. “But sometimes it gets in the way of a great program.”

• Time – “It takes about 20 minutes to take somebody to jail,” he said. “It may take two or three hours to defuse a situation” involving a person with mental illness.

In Ohio, Woody said, about 3,600 officers have had CIT training.

“That’s the good news,” he said, noting that Ohio is often cited as a “poster child” for CIT training. “The bad news is that that’s 3,600 out of 33,000 sworn officers.”

In Kansas, fewer than 500 law enforcement officers have been through CIT training.

“We have a lot of work to do,” said Rick Cagan, executive director at NAMI-Kansas.

About 50 people attended the daylong conference.