MASON CITY – The Mason City Police Department has been awarded an Implementation Grant by the Bureau of Justice Assistance through the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP). The grant period began October 1, 2019 and ends on September 30, 2022. The amount of the grant is approximately $480,000.
MCPD has been working cooperatively with local mental health stakeholders for several years to improve outcomes for mental health consumers. Some of those stakeholders include: County Social Services, MercyOne North Iowa, North Iowa Transition Center, CG Public Health, Crisis Intervention Service, YSS Francis Lauer, Mason City Community Health Center, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Friends of the Family, Four Oaks, Prairie Ridge, Department ofCorrections, Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s Office, Juvenile Court Services, and elected state government representatives.
Since 2018, County Social Services and MCPD have partnered to fund and house the Justice Coordinator position. The Justice Coordinator is a social worker that helps to provide support to mental health consumers who have frequent contact with law enforcement.
In 2017, MCPD received a JMHCP grant for $75,000 that funded the process to write a mental health planning guide for Mason City. Working with community mental health stakeholders, that process was completed and the planning guide was submitted in September 2018. This new grant award will work to implement those recommendations. Some of the things that are planned for this grant period include: Crisis Intervention Training, updated de-escalation and mental health training for law enforcement, virtual reality mental health training, mobile injection therapy, and recertification training that builds instructor capacity in our local mental health resources.