Crime Prevention Unit hopes to aid the community
May 24—LIMA — Liz Casey of the Crime Prevention Unit shared some thoughts about some new initiatives possible for the Lima City Police Department. The Lima Police Department's Crime prevention unit is a part of its Community Oriented Policing program.
Casey shared that the goal of the various programs under consideration "will be about unifying our community. It will be about breaking down barriers. It will be about inclusion."
One program is the SAFE Program. SAFE is an acronym for Safety and Awareness For Everyone. It is a program for those families in the city that have special needs occupants in their homes. There will be considerable information that is asked specifically about that occupant. There is no age restriction. This information is gathered so in the event of an emergency, when emergency response teams come on the scene, they will realize that there is a person with a different set of needs who may not respond in a typical manner.
Members of the response teams would know calming techniques, they would know that the special-needs occupant may have taken off because he or she was scared and some of the person's favorite places where he or she may have gone. This will help not only those in the situation but also help minimize the amount of stress put on members of the community who handle life a little bit differently.
Last week approval was given by the Lima Noon Optimists to hold a special meeting at Safety City. There will be a pilot camp this year for children held from August 8 through the 12. Each camp is two hours long. One will run from 9 to 11 a.m. and then the second one will be from 1 to 3 p.m. There will be 10 kids per session, so the ideal situation will serve 100 children in all.
The Human Library utilizes various people from the community with different backgrounds and walks of life who will become human books. Those who wish to participate will pick a human book, sit down and have a 30-minute conversation. The human book may be a person who has PTSD or schizophrenia or other mental health condition that makes them different. Through the conversation, participants hopefully can see the individuals as people and not as their labels, their conditioning or their diagnosis. The goal is that people will gain an understanding of what it's like to walk in the human book's shoes.
The Allen County Crime Prevention Association is another program Casey would like to develop. This program is usually comprised of law enforcement officers and stakeholders in the community. Casey wants to open it to all emergency responders. She wants to include community stakeholders because a community member's perspective is just as important as that of the police chief or EMS because we all work together to serve our communities. Casey believes "that communication needs to happen in order to create a movement to get through some of the stuff that holds our community back from greatness."
Reach Dean Brown at 567-242-0409
