Fox Valley group asks Kane County to fund mental health programs

Members of a Kane County community organization asked elected leaders Saturday to fund programs that would divert people with mental illness from jail through a community re-entry program and expanded officer training.

Organizers of the Fox River Valley Initiative, a coalition of churches and nonprofit groups, called on Kane County Board members to approve budget requests of State's Attorney Joe McMahon and Sheriff Don Kramer that supporters believe would help reduce rates of recidivism and how much the county spends on incarceration.

Both officials were in attendance Saturday afternoon before hundreds who gathered in the pews of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in St. Charles for the organization's issues assembly meeting. Members of DuPage United, a sister organization, also attended.

Kramer is seeking a $178,000 grant from riverboat funds for a pilot program that would link those leaving jail with community health and social service providers.

McMahon's preliminary budget includes $40,000 to expand crisis intervention team training for law enforcement countywide where officers would learn to recognize symptoms of mental illness and be able to respond to people in crisis. Trained officers would use their discretion before an arrest or before a booking to redirect individuals to mental health treatment facilities instead of going to jail.

Last November, 30 officers in Kane County took the 40-hour certified course to learn how to respond to situations involving those with mental illness.

Support of such programs would help break the cycle of "arrest, release and rearrest," said Rick Vander Forest, director of social services and facilities for the Ecker Center for Mental Health in Elgin.

In 2014, more than 20 percent of those incarcerated in the Kane County jail had some form of mental illness, officials said.

Bill Scown, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, said spending money on mental health treatment programs would help reduce court and jail costs.

"We either have to spend more money every year to arrest, prosecute and jail people with mental illness, or address the underlying cause," Scown said. "Dealing with mental health problems needs to be high on the priority list."

Five county board members and seven candidates running for election who attended Saturday's meeting pledged to support McMahon and Kramer's funding requests.