Douglas County commissioners and staff on Wednesday tasked Lawrence Community Shelter leadership with providing a more structured plan before they consider its request for $148,000 in additional funding this year. The shelter has faced financial issues in recent years, and in December, its ...
The Douglas County Commission on Wednesday will hear from a firm contracted to help the Lawrence Community Shelter with management, budgeting and other such concerns. Among other items noted in the firm’s report, it suggests the shelter change its mission statement to focus exclusively on ...
Just as local behavioral health leaders want to build up a crisis intervention center at the future Douglas County Recovery Campus, they want to break down some infrastructure that could stand in their way. Douglas County commissioners heard Wednesday about plans beyond the blueprint for a ...
A message that Douglas County leaders in behavioral health and the criminal justice system shared during a Tuesday event can be boiled down simply: We’re doing well, but we can do more. The Stepping Up community recognition event, held at the Cider Gallery in East Lawrence, was planned ...
County leaders will soon learn more about plans for project management for the Crisis Intervention Center on the Douglas County Recovery Campus. Douglas County commissioners will hear from Bob Tryanski, the county’s director of behavioral health projects, during their 4 p.m. Wednesday work ...
Douglas County has reduced the number of people with serious mental illness booked into the local jail by 56% since October 2015, according to a news release from the county. Now it’s helping other counties in the state make similar strides, local criminal justice leaders told the Douglas ...
The stonework of the historic Douglas County Courthouse could see some renovations in the next couple of years. The Douglas County Commission attended a preliminary work session on the next five-year capital improvement plan on Wednesday. Much of the plan is still up in the air, and several ...
The Douglas County Commission has approved an agreement with a Kansas City, Mo.-based nonprofit that will provide respite housing and support for men with mental illness and substance use disorders. However, commissioners are already bracing for pushback from possible neighbors of the home, ...
The Douglas County Commission on Wednesday will vote on a project that aims to provide respite housing and support for residents with mental illness and substance use disorders. Commissioners will consider entering into a memorandum of understanding with a Kansas City, Mo.-based nonprofit, ...
In 2017, African American youths outnumbered white youths in admissions to the juvenile detention center of Douglas County, where the population is 83.5% white. That year, the Douglas County youths admitted to the JDC were approximately 41% white, 49.5% African American, 6.7% Native American ...
Pam Weigand told Douglas County commissioners during their Wednesday work session that Kansas’ numbers of juvenile cases, intake assessments and youths involved in court programs are all trending downward. So is the population of the local juvenile detention center, the director of Douglas ...
None of the three Douglas County commissioners was eager to move to approve the next year’s health plan for county employees on Wednesday. Interim County Administrator Sarah Plinsky had told commissioners at a March 20 work session that the county’s “extremely low deductible” health ...
When Christina Gentry first moved to Lawrence with her husband and four children, she began a long road of homelessness, she said Wednesday during a community meeting focusing on affordable housing. After plans to move into a five-bedroom home fell through, Gentry and her family were forced to ...
The Douglas County Commission’s work session on Wednesday will focus on Criminal Justice Services’ youth programs, including alternatives to incarceration and the future of the Juvenile Detention Center. Pam Weigand, the county’s director of Criminal Justice Services, will give a ...
LITTLETON, Colo. — The first SWAT team members to see the horror in the Columbine High School library had to step around bodies and ignore a wounded student’s plea for help as they searched for shooters they didn’t know had already died by their own hands. As member Grant Whitus put it, ...
Douglas County Commissioner Patrick Kelly on Wednesday asked why, with all the social services and programs available in the area, the county hasn’t seen one like what Artists Helping the Homeless has to offer. Kar Woo, the nonprofit’s founder, said it was because the county needed an ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will hear a proposal on respite housing that would aim to fill a gap in services for men with mental illness or substance use disorders. According to information provided in the commission’s agenda for its 4 p.m. work session, local behavioral ...
First responders do and see a lot of things that most people don’t, and it impacts them, Paul Taylor told Douglas County commissioners at their Wednesday meeting. As a result, they need a different kind of help — and Taylor, first responder assistance coordinator for the Douglas County ...
An Australia-based animal health company that received startup funding from both the City of Lawrence and Douglas County has been ordered to repay some of that money now that it has abandoned its local offices. However, city officials say there's no easy way for the local governments to ...
Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday will consider an agreement with United Way of the Plains that would allow residents to access an online database with a range of community resources, including help for food, housing, clothing, health care and more. Currently, any resident can dial ...