By Police1 Staff
NEW YORK — The CSG Justice Center has announced the launch of the national Expanding First Response Commission.
Comprising elected officials, behavioral health professionals, law enforcement representatives and community leaders, the commission will create national recommendations for policymakers at the federal and state levels who aim to ensure that communities across the country have available to them a rich continuum of response options for emergency calls for service.
Commission members meet regularly with several guiding principles directing their work:
- Engaging stakeholders and experts to develop strategies that sustain community responder models and build best practices for how they can operate as strong parts of comprehensive crisis and safety systems.
- Unifying voices of national and local experts to promote community responders as part of effective crisis systems and as significant, legitimate, and professional first responders within these systems.
- Connecting siloed sectors of community responder program work (i.e., dispatch and law enforcement partnership, city management, fire/emergency medical services, and elected officials) to develop a shared understanding and set of steps to advance these models.
- Elevating informed voices to shape the recommendations of the commission.
- Making space for community responder models as vehicles for national innovation in public safety and crisis systems.
The Commission offers a variety of resources including a toolkit that outlines best practices to implement an effective community responder program:
https://vimeo.com/654551791/fc74dfc1ee?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=108354081
An Expanding First Response Assessment Tool is a complementary component of the Expanding First Response toolkit that can be used to help communities determine where they are in planning, implementing and sustaining community responder programs. Upon completing the tool, users will receive a summary of their results and resources to aid their progress or amplify their success story. Click here to access.
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