Illinois Code § 10

§ 10.

Safe2Help Illinois program management and administration. (a) The Illinois State Police, in consultation with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, State Board of Education, Department of Human Services, and Department of Children and Family Services shall, to the extent that funds are appropriated for that purpose, establish a program for receiving reports and other information from the public regarding potential self-harm or potential harm or criminal acts directed at school students, school employees, or schools in this State. The Illinois State Police shall establish the program in accordance with this Act. The Illinois State Police shall have access to the information needed to meet the reporting requirements of Section 35. (b) The program shall include a Safe2Help Illinois helpline for operators to receive reports and information from the general public as described in subsection (a). The helpline shall be available for use 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. (c) The Department of Innovation and Technology shall operate a dedicated website to provide mental health information for students, promotional information to local law enforcement officials, school officials, and the general public regarding the program. (d) Beginning on the date that Safe2Help Illinois is operational, any State or locally operated school violence help line currently in operation shall work in conjunction with Safe2Help Illinois as needed. The CPS Violence Prevention Hotline established under Section 34-21.8 of the School Code and the Safe2Help Illinois shall cooperate with each other. If the Safe2Help Illinois helpline receives information about incidents occurring in the Chicago public schools, it shall transmit that information to the CPS Violence Prevention Hotline. For the purposes of this subsection (d), a State-operated school violence help line does not include the CPS Violence Prevention Hotline established under Section 34-21.8 of the School Code. Instead, the Illinois State Police shall work in conjunction with the Chicago Board of Education and the Chicago Police Department to direct all applicable calls received by Safe2Help to the CPS Violence Prevention Hotline. (e) The Illinois State Police shall be responsible for the continued operational oversight of the program. The program shall provide for a means to review all reports and information submitted through Safe2Help Illinois and to direct those reports and that information, including any analysis of the potential threat as determined appropriate by the Illinois State Police, to local law enforcement officials and school officials. (f) The Illinois State Police shall ensure that program personnel or call center staff, or both, are appropriately trained in the following areas: (1) crisis management, including recognizing mental illness and emotional disturbance; (2) the resources that are available for providing mental health and other human services; (3) matters determined by the Illinois State Police to be relevant to the operation of the program; and (4) handling of criminal intelligence information regarding primary and data collection, storage, and dissemination. (g) A report or other information submitted to the program is considered to be a report to a law enforcement agency and shall be maintained as a record by the Illinois State Police for at least 5 years, subject to the confidentiality requirements of this Act. (h) The Illinois State Police shall ensure that any information submitted to the program where mental health services are needed will be referred to the appropriate centralized reporting system as provided in Section 76 of the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Administrative Act. (Source: P.A. 102-752, eff. 1-1-23.)