SAPD's Community Immersion Program is a community-oriented policing initiative that sends cadets into neighborhoods they'll someday patrol.
Valerie Narvaez, director of homeless services at Christian Assistance Ministry, and Heather Clemons, homeless response team manager, talk to cadets from SAPD's community immersion program.Ten years ago, Valerie Narvaez had just gotten sober and was staying at Haven for Hope, San Antonio’s largest homeless shelter and services hub. During that time, she would walk around downtown and the near West Side to reach out to others who might need help or a listening ear.
Narvaez relayed this story to three young SAPD cadets on Wednesday inside a small classroom at Christian Assistance Ministry, where she now serves as director of homeless services. By showing cadets different stakeholder perspectives, Narvaez hopes all officers and community members can avoid the kind of negative interaction she experienced a decade ago.
SAPD Officer Francisco Javier, who was a cadet in the community immersion program, speaks to the media about his experience.The SAPD pilot hopes to improve de-escalation, increase peaceful encounters with police, increase police understanding of community concerns and increase trust and collaboration between the department and the public, nonprofit and city, officials said.
The dozens of charms on her heavy, silver bracelet chimed as she gestured toward the smiling cadets. “I started literally stalking y’all. I even tried to download a police scanner and I was showing up to hotspots where I knew police were going to be called on homelessness. And I threw myself in with you guys.”One officer, a member of SAPD’s then-fledgling Homeless Outreach Positive Encounters team, drove Narvaez and a colleague to visit a woman whom they knew needed to go to the hospital.
Valerie Narvaez, director of homeless services at CAM,and Heather Clemons, homeless response team manager at CAM, run an exercise with the SAPD cadets from the community immersion program in which they step inside a cardboard box to experience what it would feel like to sleep inside.“If I told you that this is where you went to bed and this is where you wake up every morning, how would you feel?” she asked.
When his mental health “took a nosedive” several years ago, an apathetic police officer told Yanas his hallucinations were “all in my head.” SAPD already invites several community stakeholders to speak to cadets at the police academy, but this pilot program allows them to see the spaces and neighborhoods in which residents operate and live, he said.
Once the program design is finalized, Yokum and his colleagues will prepare to perform a randomized control trial to measure its impact, meaning they will compare the outcomes of officers who participate to those who do not.
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