Illinois House OKs measure to give mental health workers called to emergencies the same benefits as other first responders
Chicago TribuneApr 17, 2024
Mental health advocates for years have pushed for a more holistic approach to many emergency calls by having police officers team up with social workers, clinicians or similar practitioners to help quell potentially volatile situations.
When that approach is in practice, mental health workers should be entitled to the same benefits as the police officers who are putting their lives on the line, said state Rep. Lilian Jiménez, the main sponsor of the bill in the House.
“We’re really doing one thing and that is extending benefits to all crisis responders. We’re extending disability benefits, death duty benefits, burial benefits,” Jiménez, a
Under the legislation, the mental health professionals are defined as those persons “employed and dispatched by a unit of local government to respond to crisis calls received on public emergency service lines instead of or in conjunction with law enforcement.”
Jiménez’s bill passed through the Democrat-controlled House on a 80-27 vote and now goes to the
Gov.
While a handful of House Republicans joined
State Rep.
“It’s important if we’re going to be putting these folks in these positions where we feel the need to have legislation for line of duty benefits that they would receive that training,” Wilhour said.
Jiménez did not respond with any specific training information.
State Rep.
“If we’re looking at municipalities doing that too, I think we need to coordinate the effort before we move forward with this because we’re talking about the same types of entities and the same professionals having very different benefits,” Haas said. “And I think we need to do a little bit more work on that.”
House Republican leader
Jiménez told McCombie that DCFS workers were in a “separate category.”
Democratic state Rep.
“Let’s stick to the topic and make sure that folks who are accompanying law enforcement on these crisis calls have the same protections that they have,” Cassidy said.
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