LYNN — The city continues to make progress in the formation of an unarmed response team, and is closer to implementing it after coming up with a name and posting the position of director.
A working group of stakeholders has been meeting since April to help develop the vision for the unarmed response team, including the name, structure, and call types to which it will respond.
The stakeholders included members of the community, the city’s Public Health Department, Lynn Community Health Center, the co-chairs of the Lynn Racial Justice Coalition, and community organization/service providers including Children’s Friend and Family Services, My Brother’s Table, HAWC, North Shore Rape Crisis Center, and others.
The city hosted a public forum in July, with Spanish interpretation available, to share updates with the community. Police Chief Chris Reddy, members of the Community Behavioral Health Center, and the mayor’s office fielded questions from the public, addressed concerns, and discussed next steps.
There were more than 50 people in attendance.
“Creating an unarmed response team has been a major goal of our administration. I’m grateful for the many collaborators who have gotten us this far and excited for the important step of finding the right program director,” Mayor Jared Nicholson said.
At its Sept. 14 meeting, the working group finalized recommendations that were shared with the mayor’s office, including the name of the team: Lynn Calm Team, which symbolizes the goal of the unarmed response team to create a calm and positive response to community concerns. Another attraction for this name among the community was that it would be easy to translate into other languages while still maintaining the essence of what the word signifies.
“We are incredibly grateful for the knowledge, time and thoughtfulness of this working group of stakeholders,” Lynn DEI Officer Faustina Cuevas, who has been leading the efforts on the city side, said. “We were able to deliberate important and critical components of this unarmed response team and attempt to find common ground on what will work for everyone in our community.”
The focus of LCT will be in three areas: acute mental and behavioral health, community mediation, and quality-of-life matters. To start, the team will operate in a pilot phase a few days a week with the hope of expanding in the near future based on the success of the pilot.
The next steps are to work with Eliot’s Community Behavioral Health Center to sign a contract to host the LCT at 95 Pleasant St. The city will also post the position of program director, who will oversee the team and the contract with Eliot from the city side. This position will operate out of the Public Health Department and will be full-time with benefits. Other roles for the team will be worked out with Eliot through a contract agreement.
“We can’t wait to find the right program director to help us launch this independent alternative response to address critical mental health needs and further racial justice in our city,” Nicholson said.
