Kane Co. mental health court sees first graduate

The inaugural participant in Kane County's mental health court graduated from the program Wednesday, saying he plans to finish his education and become a drug and alcohol abuse counselor.

The 26-year-old man, who is not being identified at his and the court's request, was accepted into the alternative treatment program April 12, 2006, after an arrest for aggravated fleeing and eluding police.

"I kind of viewed the program as an easy out instead of going to jail. I was wrong," he said, adding that he participated in a weekly regimen of counseling and treatment for his bipolar disorder.

"I have become someone I never though I could: Someone ready to face the world," he said during a brief graduation ceremony at the county's judicial center in St. Charles.

When the mental health court launched in February 2006, Kane joined Cook, DuPage and Winnebago as the only counties in the state with such a program.

Similar to its drug court, Kane County's mental health court accepts participants arrested for misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies. Graduates of the two-year program are eligible to have their charges wiped from their records.

Chief Judge Don Hudson, who led the push to create Kane County's mental health court, said the program is key in reducing crime and treating mentally ill offenders.

"It's about establishing a program that improves the quality of life in the community and the people whose mental illness they have no control of," Hudson said.

Judge Timothy Sheldon presides over mental health court, which is staffed in part by the Kane County diagnostic center, local mental health professionals, prosecutors and public defenders.