The City continues to move forward with the creation of an unarmed crisis response team, having hired a group of consultants in the last few weeks to assist in the implementation of ALERT (All Lynn Emergency Response Team).
The consultants are: Health Resources in Action (HRiA), the Collins Center for Public Management at UMass Boston, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC).
The consultants are charged with managing the process that will result in ALERT, which will respond to situations involving conflict resolution, substance abuse and mental health issues. Part of the consultants’ work will be to present evidence-based practices that can be implemented in Lynn. There will also be a community-engagement process that includes feedback from a variety of stakeholders, who will have the opportunity to voice their thoughts and concerns, as well as input from public-safety professionals.
“I am committed to implementing this initiative,” said Mayor Jared C. Nicholson, who acknowledged that while the process may not be moving as quickly as some would like, a successful launch will take significant time and effort given the importance of the work and the challenges involved.
“Given the importance of the issue and the innovative nature of the work, we are proceeding thoughtfully and deliberatively,” the mayor added. “There are hard questions that have to be answered. I am confident the result of these efforts will be a team that is prepared to perform the work for which it was intended.”
Spurred by the leadership of the Lynn Racial Justice Coalition, the City has been exploring the idea of an unarmed crisis response since the fall of 2020 in partnership with other stakeholders. The City spent about $200,000 on the development and implementation of ALERT in fiscal year 2022 and has budgeted an additional $250,000 for next year.
Faustina Cuevas, the City’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion officer, said Lynn can learn from the experience of other communities.
“There is no question that ALERT is going to become a reality,” she said. “All of our research and discussions with other communities have indicated that unarmed crisis response teams take time to be shaped and implemented. We want to make sure the process is done equitably and involves all the voices of our community.”
