Kane mental health leaders push for Aurora crisis unit
In recent years, Kane County officials have taken steps to address mental illness issues, beginning with specialized crisis intervention training for police officers.
The next step, mental health leaders said Tuesday, is to open a crisis stabilization unit, where people can be evaluated for up to 23 hours for assessment and treatment.
Officials say this provides another option to a drawn out visit to a hospital emergency room or incarceration at the county jail.
"There are still significant gaps in the county," Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon said Tuesday during his monthly media meeting in which he invited area mental health experts to discuss existing services and the plans for a possible for a crisis stabilization unit.
Presence Mercy Medical Center in Aurora is poised to convert an old, unused operating room into a crisis unit, said Adrienne McCauley, lead organizer at the DuPage United and Fox River Valley Initiative.
The unit would have a capacity to treat and evaluate eight people, with the option of expanding to 32.
It is not an inpatient facility, but a bridge to evaluate people in a mental health situation.
"The whole point of the crisis stabilization unit is this is a handoff so people receive good follow-up treatment," McCauley said.
People would get services from mental health experts ranging from a diagnosis to medication plans.
One hurdle is for the state to retool its Medicaid reimbursement ratio, experts said.
A decrease in reimbursement has prompted a Rockford unit to reduce its hours and a unit on Chicago's West Side to close.
McMahon said he and other officials have met with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who "immediately understood" the issue and has pledged funding.
"(The unit at Mercy) is going to be a huge asset to the residents of Kane County. We're excited we've made some progress on that front," McMahon said, noting the unit could help decrease the jail population, keep people out of the criminal justice system and make better use of police officers' time.
In 2017, McMahon's office began organizing specialized crisis intervention training for area police officers and sheriff's deputies.
The idea was to give officers the training and tools to de-escalate a situation involving a person with a mental illness instead of a one-size, lock-them-up approach.
So far, more than 150 officers have completed the training.
"People know to ask for a CIT-trained officer. Officers are able to de-escalate the issue at hand," said Carol Speckmann, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Kane-south, DeKalb and Kendall counties.