© 2025 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Central Standard

Police Training On How To Respond To Mental Health Situations

Police officers often respond to situations that involve people suffering from mental health problems.

Since they are called first for help, there is a growing effort to train the officers in how to handle the situations.

On today's Central Standard, we discuss how police training is changing in order to accommodate mental health crisis response techniques.

Guests:

  • Frank Denning, Sheriff of Johnson County, Kan.
  • Erin O'Donnell, lieutenant at Johnson County, Kan.
  • Nikk Thompson, crisis intervention training coordinator at NAMI - KC
Laura Spencer is staff writer/editor at the Kansas City Public Library and a former arts reporter at KCUR.
Matthew Long-Middleton has been a talk-show producer, community producer, Media Training Manager and now the Community Engagement Manager at KCUR. You can reach him at Matthew@kcur.org, or on Twitter @MLMIndustries.