A new grant from the U.S. Department of Justice is designed to help the Aurora Police Department fund social workers for its Crisis Intervention Unit, which officers hope to expand in the next few years.
The $294,000 two-year grant from the Justice Department’s COPS Office was announced in October and Aurora City Council members are expected to approve receiving the funds on Tuesday night.
The Aurora Police Department currently has two social workers supported through the Family Service Association of Greater Elgin as part of the program. The association plans to hire an additional part-time social worker to work with the police department in September, police spokesman Lt. Joseph Howe said.
The grant will allow the department to help the association fund social workers, with the police department ideally hiring additional social workers in the next two years, Aurora Police Lt. Bill Rowley said.
“It’s something important to the community and certainly important to the police department, so regardless of the funding source we know we need to not only keep it going but we need to expand it,” Rowley said.
The Crisis Intervention Unit is a specialized program created in 2020 to help Aurora police respond to an increasing number of mental health calls, officials said. The program allows police officers and social workers to respond together to incidents involving people facing mental health issues, and to help those individuals connect with social service programs, as an alternative to police perhaps arresting the person.
Rowley said the model has been highly successful in reducing crime and helping connect people with services, particularly young people and those struggling with substance and alcohol abuse.
During a recent City Council Committee of the Whole meeting, Ald. Bill Donnell, 4th Ward, expressed gratitude that the city is getting the grant.
Ald. John Laesch, at large, asked if enough social workers could be hired to provide round-the-clock coverage for the program in the city. Currently, social workers are on duty from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, with police officers trained in crisis intervention working during the night.
“As a (crisis intervention) officer myself, I think round-the-clock is ideal because most of these crises occur in the off hours when we are all safely tucked away in bed,” Rowley said.
Around $20,000 of the grant is earmarked for training officers on crisis intervention.