Over the past 9 months, DCSD has lead a thorough, careful planning process that was community-informed, highly collaborative, data driven and evidenced based.
Community-Informed: We have been conducting in-person resident interviews, focus groups and listening sessions. We also held two bilingual virtual town halls with Durham Community Safety and Wellness Task Force. We have directly engaged over 400 residents to date. You can view past town halls and read about what we learned from our community engagements on our website.
Highly-Collaborative: We formed a multi-agency planning team with our public safety partners (Emergency Medical Services, Durham Police Department, Department of Emergency Communications Center [911], Durham Fire Department), Alliance Health, Criminal Justice Resource Center, UNC School of Social Work, Housing for New Hope, Research Triangle Institute (RTI), & Recovery Innovations to plan pilots. We also conducted multiple ride-alongs with Durham police officers & interviews with peer support specialists, community health workers, mental health professionals, and met with local community organizations to help plan.
Data-driven: We analyzed 3 years of Durham 911 calls to better understand which calls are appropriate for our pilots. We also conducted a use-of-force analysis and built data tools that allow us to analyze calls by volume, frequency, location, risk level, and response time.
Evidence-based: We’ve taken time to learn from many US cities leading similar work, including Albuquerque NM, Austin TX, Atlanta GA, Charleston SC, Denver CO, Greensboro NC, Houston TX, Philadelphia PA, Portland OR, & San Francisco CA, among others. We’re also part of a national cohort of five U.S. cities launching pilots this year. You can see a few of those cities' presentations to Durham residents at our October 2021 virtual town hall.
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