KTKA

Attorney General Steve Six announced today that the Tower Mental Health Foundation donated $75,000 to the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center for Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training. The goal of this training is to educate law enforcement officers and redirect individuals with mental illness from the judicial system to the health care system.

"This program will provide the foundation necessary to promote public safety and statewide solutions to assist individuals with mental illness," Six said. "This training program will help improve the safety of law enforcement officers, while encouraging cooperation between the criminal justice and mental health care systems."

This funding would facilitate training of the "Memphis Model," an innovative first-responder model of police-based crisis intervention with community, health care, and advocacy partnerships.

The "Memphis Model" for CIT was developed in Memphis, Tennessee. It provides law enforcement-based crisis intervention training for assisting those individuals with mental illnesses, and improving the safety of patrol officers, consumers, family members and citizens within the community.

CIT provides a forum for effective problem solving regarding the interaction between criminal justice and mental health care systems and creates the context for sustainable change.

This donation is not a donation to the KLETC's general fund, but rather a restricted donation to be used specifically for Memphis model training.

The Tower Foundation was created as a result of the settlement between the AG's office and the Menninger Foundation. Tower is a not for profit corporation formed in 2007. Essentially, the Tower Foundation is set up to provide support to organizations that provide mental health services to Kansans. It can also provide support to mental health research organizations. In that way it continues the mission of the Menninger Foundation in Kansas. The Foundation is subject to KOMA and KORA.