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August 20, 2020
JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
VOLUME 16 | ISSUE 12
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 10 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | SPORTS: PAGE 17
PROUDLY POMONA
Two more clinicians to join Arvada PD Total of four specialists on mental health team BY CASEY VAN DIVIER CVANDIVIER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The Pomona Class of 2020 finally got to celebrate graduation. More photos on Page 4.
PHOTO BY CASEY VAN DIVIER
15,000th Arvada milk bank donor fighting to save daughters Wheat Ridge woman makes milestone donation to help other moms BY CASEY VAN DIVIER CVANDIVIER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
After 36 years, the Mothers’ Milk Bank, an Arvada-based nonprofit program of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation that provides breast milk to premature and sick babies, received support from its 15,000th donor this summer. The donation came from Wheat Ridge mother Kylie Harrison, who had her third daughter, Kieran, on June 5. A director of Jefferson County Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a registered dietitian and a certified lactation consultant, Harrison understands the importance of the help MMB provides and how meanSEE DONOR, P16
Wheat Ridge couple Kylie and Kyle Harrison pictured with daughters Kinley, Kennedy and Kieran. The couple aims to enter daughters Kinley and Kennedy into a clinical trial to hopefully treat an incurable disease both girls were diagnosed with this summer. COURTESY OF KYLIE HARRISON
The Arvada Police Department is calling in a special kind of backup. The department is hiring two new clinicians and purchasing two new vehicles for its co-responder program, which helps bring behavioral health professionals along to some calls alongside law enforcement. The Arvada program became fully operational in 2016 as one of the earliest co-responder programs receiving funding through the Colorado Department of Human Service’s Office of Behavioral Health (OBH). The office currently supports 26 such implementations of the program across the state, serving 23 counties and 57 communities. The Jefferson Center for Mental Health partnered with the Arvada Police Department (APD) to secure initial funding, employing two behavioral health professionals to join officers on calls. APD applied for the additional funding in April, and is now working with the Jefferson Center to hire two more clinicians, for a total of four in the program. The statewide program is aimed at supporting “communities that want to take a different approach to calls with a suspected behavioral health component,” says a June 2020 evaluation of the program, conducted by the Colorado Health Institute and sponsored by OBH. Departments have some leeway in how they structure their own program. In Arvada, mental health clinicians respond to behavioral healthrelated calls with officers to help provide immediate resolutions; assist officers with developing resources for response and follow-up; and follow up on officer, fire department and citizen referrals, said Arvada commander Melanie Thornton. The extra resources provided by the most recently received funding will multiply “the coverage across the week and the co-responders’ ability to respond to more calls for service throughout the city,” Thornton said. The APD gave a rough estimate that each year, it responds to anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 calls with a suspected behavioral health component. SEE POLICE, P5