RALEIGH, N.C. — Everyday first responders answer a variety of different calls, from health emergencies to life-and-death situations.
They’re forced to make split-second decisions, relying on their training to keep themselves and others safe.
And at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, says 1 in 31 children may be diagnosed with autism in our country, recognizing people with intellectual and developmental disabilities when answering a call is more important than ever.
It’s why some law enforcement officers in our state are undergoing special autism and disability training, while joining forces with parents to bridge the gap between first responders and the autism community.
Logan and Emma Passey live in Raleigh. They are the proud parents of Bo and Piper Joe, active kids who love to run, jump and play.
However, when Bo, a child with autism, experienced a fall that rendered him unconscious, the Passeys understood their son was not ready for the sight of paramedics upon regaining consciousness.
“They had to make sure he was safe. They had to make sure that his health was OK. And I realized that he was scared. He was nonverbal, so he thought someone was trying to take him away,” Logan Passey said.
Bo had to be restrained, a scary and heartbreaking experience that led the Passeys to recognize a greater need.
Soon after they created the nonprofit Cool2Care in hopes of bridging the communication gap between people with autism and first responders.
“We can go in and prepare, you know, our kids, our family members, our friends, and then when the situation does happen where there is engagement between a police officer and a member of the autism community, we both know what to do on the same side,” Emma Passey added.“We can go in and prepare, you know, our kids, our family members, our friends, and then when the situation does happen where there is engagement between a police officer and a member of the autism community, we both know what to do on the same side,” Emma Passey added.
The Passeys reached out to the Raleigh Police Department and helped set up a Pancakes with Police event. It’s a get-together so kids with autism and first responders can get to know each other better.
But what the Passeys didn’t know at the time was that RPD was already undergoing its own autism and intellectual or developmental disabilities, or IDD, safety training, to teach officers to slow down, recognize and better interact with people with autism and other disabilities.
“We want every encounter with members of our community to have the best outcome possible. And so sometimes awareness of what might be going on or some strategies that we might be able to employ to get to that positive encounter, it’s what we need so that we can serve the community in the way that they need to be served,” said Raleigh Police Maj. Eric Goodwin.
According to the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities, who is sponsoring the training, people with disabilities are sometimes unnecessarily jailed, injured, or even killed during routine interactions with law enforcement and first responders due to misunderstandings and a lack of proper training.
With the CDC saying nearly 5.5 million adults and a growing number of children are diagnosed with autism across the U.S., Raleigh’s Police Chief Rico Boyce said he recently recognized the need for increased training and awareness.
He said while on vacation with his family in Florida, he saw signs posted in windows that read “person with autism on board.”
He was curious where they came from, so he reached out to the local police.
He found they’re meant to be placed on cars and homes to alert first responders that someone inside has autism. This is also where he learned about their programs and specialized training, and decided he wanted to implement similar training with his officers back home.
Boyce then found out that this training was already happening in other North Carolina towns. According to Philip Woodward of the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities, other departments in towns like Asheville, and counties like Buncombe, Guilford, Granville and New Hanover, are or have already taken part in the training.
And the department hopes to expand the autism and IDD safety training training to other departments across the state in the future.
“If you understand their behavior or you understand what their needs are, you take the time to get to know them and understand what they need, that will help you serve them more effectively and have a better interaction with them,” Woodward said.
Half of the Raleigh police force underwent the 4-hour specialized training earlier this year with the other half scheduled for the fall.
Trainer Dustin Chandler, who trains other first responders across the country, says it focuses on observing, watching and listening for cues, adjusting your approach and responding appropriately. That might mean slowing down and taking a step back to assess the situation, and calling in different or additional resources to help.
He says in addition to training first responders this fall in Raleigh, he and Raleigh police are also opening up sessions to the public so that caregivers, parents and people with disabilities can get firsthand experience on how they can properly interact with law enforcement as well.
“Coming from a law enforcement experience, 20 years is one of the first times we’ve encountered training like this, which opened up a lot of things that I didn’t realize, just the way people act and talk and just the way they have their mannerisms to help us identify individuals with autism,” said Raleigh Police Officer Shea Martin, who already underwent training.
Training by law enforcement and getting to know members of the community face to face is a combination that parents like the Passeys hope will help if their child ever interacts with first responders again.
“With them doing their training and with us training parents and helping my son, that’s when we really create safety. It’s when we work together,” Logan Passey said.
