Justice and Human Rights United States Project #19635

Autism & Law Enforcement Education Coalition

by The Arc of South Norfolk

Project Report | Sep 30, 2016
ALEC is expanding

By Betsy Roche | Director of Development

We are excited to report that we are now up and running, hosting trainings for Mobile Crisis Units around The Commonwealth of Massachusetts! These crisis units respond to emergency situations throughout the state and are funded by The Department of Mental Health. These programs reached out to ALEC and requested our training so they could better support people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in emergency situations. Our plan is to train each and every mobile crisis team over the course of the next couple of years- a lofty goal we know we can achieve with the help and support of you, our donors!

The goal of ALEC is to make the community safer and provide supports to First Responders to best meet the needs of people with autism in an emergency situation. Our training provides First Responders with the basic strategies to ensure the safety of people with autism when they encounter First Responders. We are proud to say we have now trained over 36,000 First Responders with our program, and our numbers continue to grow.

The following is a list of trainings we have hosted in September, as well as our schedule for the next couple of months:

September-

Boston EMS, Massport Fire Department, Mass National Guard Military Police, Milford Mobile Crisis Unit, Pittsfield Mobile Crisis Unit, Massachusetts Police Training Committee in Reading and Randolph, Newton Wellesley Hospital Nurses, Somerville Crisis Intervention Team

October-

Tennessee Association of Rescue Squads, New Bedford Mobile Crisis Team, Greenwich, CT Parent Training, Glenham NY Fire Department, Georgia- 4 regional fire trainings in Atlanta and the surrounding areas, Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton MA

November-

Andover Crisis Intervention Team, Monticello, NY First Resonders, Weston PD, Rhode Island Parent Training in Cranston, Statewide First Responder Training in Cranston, RI

December-

West Palm Beach Florida Police, NERPI Police Academy

We are grateful for your support, and thank you for donating to our training program, enabling us to expand and continue with our mission to keep everyone safe!

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Jul 1, 2016
Making people with ASD safer!

By Betsy Roche | Director of Development

ALEC training in RI at ASA-RI conference

Thank you for supporting the ALEC Program at The Arc of South Norfolk!

These past few months have been busy ones for the ALEC team! We have surpassed the 35,000 mark for the number of First Responders who have been trained with the ALEC curriculum. We are very excited to report this, as we look to expand our program outside the borders of New England in 2017.

On June 30th, we closed our fiscal year and are happy to report that over the past year, ALEC has expanded within Massachusetts and has established several new collaborations with the First Response community.

We have secured a training spot with the mobile crisis units throughout the state to train their staff who are called upon during an emergency situation. These staff will now have specific training relative to autism spectrum disorders that will help them assist families in crisis.

We have reestablished our trainings with the Massachusetts State Police Academies, and just last week trained over 150 State Police recruits throughout the state. We are excited that each new recruit entering the Massachusetts State Police will now have ALEC training to help them handle emergency situations that involve someone diagnosed with autism.

Over the summer months, ALEC will be looking to start an initiative with Boston EMS, local Police and Fire Departments and the mobile crisis units to compile data and outcomes of our model. With this data, we can show exactly how effective our program continues to be for the First Response community and for people diagnosed with autism.

We will continue to pursue funding on a larger scale, as states throughout the US are requesting ALEC trainings. We greatly appreciate the support you have given to our program. Thank you for your generosity!

ALEC presenting at MA Autism Awareness Day

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Apr 4, 2016
ALEC training throughout New England

By Betsy Roche | Project Leader

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