Co-Responder Program Expands To Include 6 More Lake County Towns

WAUKEGAN, IL — Six police departments in Lake County are launching a partnership with the sheriff's office next year to expand the county's ability to respond to the mental health needs of people who come into contact with law enforcement.

Officers from the Gurnee, Lake Forest, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Mundelein and Vernon Hills police departments will team up with a mental health worker on a rotating basis to add a second full-time unit to its Crisis Outreach and Support Team, or COAST.

Each department will be responsible for providing an officer for two months out of the year, and the team will expand its area of operations to include the participating towns through a memorandum of understanding.

Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg said he looks forward to adding more municipal partners in the years to come.

“This groundbreaking initiative with our municipal partners will provide Lake County’s law-enforcement with significant resources when responding to mental health related calls," Idleburg said in a statement. "Having a social worker or clinician on-scene, aiding in de-escalation, and the mental wellness follow-up process is an incredible new method that is bound to have successful results."

The co-responder model consists of a specially trained officer and a clinical professional who team up to reach out or respond to people who are experiencing mental health crises. These police-mental health collaboration programs have been shown to reduce the chances of people getting repeatedly arrested.

The Lake County Sheriff's Office launched its full-time co-responder unit as a pilot program in partnership with the Lake County Health Department more than three years ago. The team consists of Deputy Jim Yanecek, a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, and Jordan Wheeler, a counselor from the Lake County Health Department.

"Since the unit became active in 2018, there have been over 2,100 contacts our deputies had where they identified someone in mental health crisis," Deputy Chief Chris Covelli told Patch. "Our COaST group was able to make contact with 76% of those individuals to offer follow-up service options."

The sheriff's office sorts records of its interactions in the areas it patrols to find people who may benefit from a follow-up with a mental health professional. The co-responder team can connect people to professional assistance, provide a ride to Living Room Wellness Center at the Independence Center in Waukegan — or to a hospital when immediate professional care is needed. The team is also available to respond to mental health calls that come in while it is on duty.

Lake Forest Police Chief Karl Waldorf said officers from partnering departments will be headed to advanced crisis intervention training, or CIT, next month. While the COAST can and does respond to in-progress calls, its primary function is contacting people to offer of enhanced services.

"What is the individual going through? Do they have some substance abuse needs? Are they homeless? Is it just the mental health side or are there other things on board here we can help with?" Waldorf told Patch. "The hope is to really give these people a leg up, and also to make sure that they're not continuously in contact with law enforcement, because that's not good for anybody."

Libertyville Police Chief Ed Roncone said in a statement that his department looks forward to developing a collaborative relationship with the COAST.

"By combining resources, the member law-enforcement agencies will work together to provide additional resources and support systems," Roncone said. "Our officers remain committed to providing support to our communities during mental health related calls. This new coalition will provide additional opportunities for our officers to support our communities and call upon trained professionals to assist individuals during mental health related calls."

The one-year pilot program is set to become operational in February with Mundelein providing the officer. It will allow the COAST to expand its potential contacts with people with mental health needs beyond the approximately 200,000 residents of the unincorporated areas and contract communities that the sheriff's office currently patrols to include six more municipalities with a combined population of 137,000 people.

"Some of those contacts, the person won't want any help," Waldorf said. "The COAST team is going try to talk them into it and support them, maybe make multiple visits, but in the end, if they don't want help, we can't force help on them. But quite a few of the individuals do accept the help and have had some positive outcomes."