County leaders see growing need for mental health co-responders working with police

The number of mental health-related 911 calls continues to climb in northeast Johnson County. And to meet that growing need, Johnson County Mental Health is deploying a second mental health co-responder to assist law enforcement agencies in the Shawnee Mission area.

This second staff member will split focus on assisting the police departments of Prairie Village and Leawood. The existing northeast area co-responder will continue responding to mental health-related calls across five police jurisdictions and eight other cities in northeast Johnson County.

Tim DeWeese, director of the Johnson County Mental Health Center, said the need for mental health co-responders is “definitely there,” as the data shows.

“Right now, what’s happening is that what we’ve found is that the one co-responder for all of those cities and those seven police departments — to share one co-responder — it wasn’t enough,” DeWeese said.