{"id":33735,"date":"2022-03-24T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=33735"},"modified":"2022-03-21T19:35:25","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T23:35:25","slug":"dayton-implements-mediaton-response-unit-as-part-of-police-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/local\/2022\/03\/24\/dayton-implements-mediaton-response-unit-as-part-of-police-reform\/","title":{"rendered":"Dayton Implements Mediation Response Unit as Part of Police Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Daytonians call 911 in the future, the police may not be who responds to the scene. An alternative solution to policing, the Mediation Response Unit, is in the process of being implemented, as part of the Dayton City Commission\u2019s plan to reform Dayton police<\/a>. Originally proposed in 2020, the plan was in direct response to widespread protests after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City Commission\u2019s police reform plan was put together by five different working groups, each with a committee of 20-25 people who addressed different areas of reform: oversight; use of force; training; recruitment and promotion; and community engagement. The Mediation Response Unit is an outcome of the latter group. A mental health response program<\/a>, headed by the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS)<\/a> of Montgomery County was recently launched. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raven Loaiza is the coordinator for the Mediation Response Unit (MRU). She began working in the role in early February. Her background is in the rape crisis and anti-human trafficking field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur program was set up to provide an alternative to policing for low-emergent 911 calls in the city,\u201d she said. \u201cThe overalls goals would be to improve and kind of mend the trust and improve the relationships between the police and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Low-emergent 911 calls can involve things like neighbor or roommate disputes and noise complaints. Loaiza was quick to say that the program is not taking away jobs or money from the Dayton Police. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not defunding police or anything else\u2014this is a separate program that\u2019s funded by the city,\u201d she explained. \u201cThe goal is to provide that alternative response to those lower emergent types of situations that allow for more interaction, more information.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the MRU is put in place, 911 call dispatchers will be able to transfer the call to the MRU’s dispatcher if the situation seems like it doesn\u2019t need police involvement. This will allow the police to focus on higher priority calls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur call-taker will chat with the 911 caller, kind of assess the situation, find out what\u2019s going on, get a little bit of information,\u201d Loaiza said. \u201cSometimes, it might be something that can be handled over the phone. If it cannot be handled over the phone and they are open to having mediators respond, then our call-taker would dispatch a team of two mediators to the scene and then we would proceed from there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the future, Loaiza hopes people will start calling the MRU directly. \u201cBut hey, we have to get our name out there and show the community what we\u2019re about first,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They currently have five mediation responders, all from different backgrounds including law enforcement and corrections, children and social services, and community leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been in the communities, we\u2019ve been knocking on doors, talking to people, de-escalating, having conversations, connecting to resources; so that isn\u2019t something that\u2019s new to any of us,\u201d Loaiza said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the five Mediation Responders, eight languages are spoken. They will always respond to calls in pairs. They are unarmed and have the ability for what is known as a horizontal communication plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example, if I\u2019m out there on a mediation response and it\u2019s escalating beyond what mediators are trained to do or it\u2019s become a violent situation, then we will have public safety radios so we will be able to inform the police and police will be able to respond,\u201d Loaiza said. \u201cOf course, that\u2019s not a goal but that could happen if the situation arose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police will also be able to notify the MRU if they\u2019re on a call they think could be better handled by the Mediation team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the mental health crisis response unit will be a separate program, Loaiza acknowledged that they may also deal with situations where mental health is a factor. Most of the MRU responders are trained for certain mental health crises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all have mental health first aid,\u201d she said. \u201cWe know how to connect and things like that so it\u2019s not out of the question; it would not be our primary focus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This first concrete initiate of Dayton police reform has only come to fruition after extensive planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith this program alone, there\u2019s been planning since last June or July,\u201d Loaiza said. \u201cThere\u2019s been lots of planning; we got the folks hired in late 2021\/early 2022. We\u2019re currently in a six-week intensive training program that focuses on safety, mediation, community outreach, mental health, and all the other things that come along with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said it\u2019s likely the training will be extended a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe goal is within the next 6 weeks or so do some trial testing, what we would call a soft launch to do that type of thing\u2014get out, respond, get all of the kinks out of the system if you will, and then do a broader, public launch,\u201d she said. \u201cA piece of this is human outreach and while we\u2019re in training, we\u2019re not able to do much of that. But we need to get into the neighborhoods, we need to let the community know who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loaiza wants the city of Dayton to know what the MRU is going to look like. They will wear maroon shirts with black pants and travel in an SUV that has the word \u2018Mediation\u2019 on it. They will look very distinct from police officers or other cities of Dayton employees. She said that the biggest concern the police and community have had is the safety of the MRU responders. The team is well-trained to handle mediation situations. Safety is their top priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel Rosen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Associate Editor <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Daytonians call 911 in the future, the police may not be who responds to the scene. An alternative solution to policing, the Mediation Response Unit, is in the process of being implemented, as part of the Dayton City Commission\u2019s plan to reform Dayton police. Originally proposed in 2020, the plan was in direct response […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":33736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3522,3328,2110,3327,3393],"tags":[3657,3841,5177,4868],"class_list":["post-33735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dayton-news","category-government","category-local","category-politics","category-u-s-news","tag-dayton-news","tag-dayton-police","tag-police-reform","tag-rachel-rosen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/pexels-oleg-magni-2733667-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-8M7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33735"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33759,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33735\/revisions\/33759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}