The Department of Racial and Social Justice recently dialoged with a representative from The Black Response Cambridge over alternative emergency response models.

By Cassidy Beek

The Department of Racial and Social Justice (RSJ) discussed alternative emergency response models as part of the Public Safety for All (PSFA) webinar series, on Wednesday, July 12, with Stephanie Guirand from The Black Response Cambridge.

This was the second session in the series of webinars, continuing the goal of educating the public on potential alternative response models to be implemented in Somerville. Guirand presented the targeted population intervention model, which would address the root causes of violence in Somerville, and outlined a possible design approach.

Guirand began by providing examples of organizations and initiatives that target populations through their interventions. As a way to support survivors of poverty, the Material Aid and Advocacy Program (MAAP) located in Cambridge, presents a holistic approach to allocating resources and building community for survivors of poverty. While also offering aid in Somerville, according to Guirand, the organization supplies food, clothing and tents as well as advocates for the specific needs of the community such as safe consumption sites and harm reduction materials including drug testing supplies.

The first step in disrupting cycles of violence includes identifying an issue among a population. Observing youth violence for example, an intervention requires a process for identifying a proposed solution such as collecting survey data, creating focus groups and facilitating outreach among the population.

According to Guirand, the intervention must increase low take up rates for youth job programs. Guirand encouraged further surveys and discussions with youth program job administrators to identify the logistics of the issue. Also, the city would need to allocate resources, specifically promotional materials including money for outreach and the actors needed to facilitate the intervention.

A clear and noninvasive monitoring evaluation system is also necessary to measure the success of an intervention. Examining the rise of take up rates from the previous year and repeating the intervention process if the rates remain low is crucial for success according to Guirand.

Some potential populations that can be served by alternative interventions, meaning non-police interventions, include the youth, substance users, immigrant groups, the unhoused and survivors of domestic violence. Types of interventions include ending violence, addressing communication gaps between people and government programs, promoting peacekeeping and supplying first aid services.

Every intervention must include stipends for people who complete responder training. “There is a shortage of social workers and licensed clinicians in the greater Boston area, so it is unrealistic to consider an intervention that’s going to be clinician-led or fully clinician-led,” said Guirand. It is crucial for Somerville to determine how they will pay people to fill the roles of crisis response workers.

Types of training vary when it comes to designing an intervention and therefore may involve street medic training to address physical needs of individuals, harm reduction training focused on substance abuse or self-defense training to address domestic violence. Guirand recommended tools such as community dialogue spaces and the ability for a responder to utilize pod mapping, which identifies resources the individual has to address their own needs. The types of powers granted to responders is also significant in the discussion as they permit alternative response employees to facilitate the distribution of resources and develop community accountability space such as safe dialogue spaces for community members.

Denise Capers, the director of RSJ commented on the importance of the recent PSFA study. “We are ahead of the game in terms of being able to have not just community feedback on what concerns they have but also have benefitted from gathering data on different aspects on public safety in Somerville. Collecting data and analyzing it and making recommendations is key, then the next step is to go further into communities getting more information from the stakeholders about how to design an intervention that will make a dent in the issue,” said Capers.

At the end of the webinar, some constituents asked questions regarding the process of creating alternative response programs.

The first constituent asked whether those who participate as alternative response employees have to sign consent forms to mitigate liability risk. Guirand responded to the question by saying if the employee is an unpaid individual, they are protected by the good samaritan law, and cannot be sued when protecting someone in time of crisis.

When asked about the biggest challenges in creating emergency response models, Guirand emphasized the complications that come when people duplicate programs without considering the specific needs and population of the city. “People want to copy and paste programs without considering the population of Somerville or languages spoken. We want to push Somerville not to do that and there needs to be a process for identifying what needs to be done,” said Guirand.

After receiving a request for advice about creating a task force, Guirand highlighted the need to focus on improving communication between the resources that are present in Somerville. “Somerville is not an island, it is crucial to consider how we work with Cambridge to address housing crisis for example. How does Somerville create the right resources to allow people to remain in Somerville because they love it, that needs to be considered by the task force,” said Guirand.

To learn more about the PSFA informational series visit somervillema.gov/psfa and somerville.gov/rsj.