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17 October 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – The City of Wichita and Sedgwick County are expanding their integrated care team. The group works with law enforcement responding to mental health crises.
The goal of growing the program is to reduce the number of arrests and de-escalate situations.
The addition of three new integrated care teams is a result of the success seen with the first team, ICT-1. The expansion lets the city and county assess where they should place funding for mental healthcare in the future.
ICT-1 formed as a way to bring people support in mental health crisis situations without taking them to jail or a mental health ward.
“It is working,” Sedgwick County Commissioner Jim Howell said. “I’m not sure that we’re as good as we can get. I think we still have some opportunities to continue to improve.”
The biggest challenge is that there’s only one mental health care team, according to Howell.
ICT-1 is made up of a paramedic, a police officer and a mental health professional.
“You’re taking an officer whose full time employ is as a patrol officer, and you’re saying in addition to that patrol work, do this,” said Kristi Barton-Edwards, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Newman University. “And then you’re taking a paramedic and saying, in addition to this, do this. It’s really hard to find people that are available to do this work.”
The new units will have two mental health professionals and no first responders.
The teams meet a growing need for mental healthcare, according to Howell.
“To have one response team available for 40 hours a week in a community of over a half a million people, it just doesn’t seem to be the right fit,” Howell said.
Administrators of the ICT teams believe this resource will help people in a mental health emergency find long term solutions instead of getting sent to jail.
The county will use the expansion to gather data. They will then decide whether to keep the program as is, add funding or reduce it. An exact launch date for the new teams is not yet known.