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City Council directs workshops to expand unarmed crisis response career pipeline
Summary
The Los Angeles City Council on May 7 unanimously approved a motion directing city departments to develop workshops and workforce strategies to expand unarmed mobile crisis response staffing and career pathways.
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a motion directing city departments to develop training workshops and career-pathway strategies for unarmed mobile crisis response providers.
The motion, advanced by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and seconded by Council President Marquise Harris‑Dawson, asks the city's Civil and Human Rights and Equity Department and the Youth Development Department to report back on strategies to co-sponsor workshops that would educate about career pathways into unarmed crisis response.
The motion comes 1 year into the city's pilot of an unarmed mobile crisis response model (UMCR). Councilmember Hernandez, who co-chairs the ad hoc committee on unarmed crisis prevention and intervention, said the pilot shows that "leading with care works." She told colleagues the workshops aim to build a workforce of social workers and mental‑health professionals who can deploy in place of armed officers in appropriate calls.
Supporters said the move is intended to expand recruiting, training and retention for teams that dispatch social workers, crisis counselors and other non‑law enforcement professionals to behavioral‑health and mental‑health calls. Hernandez said the measure also seeks to create a formal pipeline of jobs and training so the program can be scaled.
The council recorded a 15‑0 vote in favor.
Council action now tasks the named departments with developing workshop plans and return reports to the council with recommendations, timelines and potential partnerships. The motion does not appropriate new funding; any budget requests would come back to the council separately.
Advocates and service providers who testified or were referenced during debate were thanked in council comments; Hernandez singled out "our incredible service providers for their heroic work," and urged colleagues to back workforce development as a way to sustain the UMCR model.
What's next: the departments must draft the report called for in the motion and return it to the council. The council did not set a specific reporting deadline in the text discussed on the floor.
Speakers quoted in this article spoke during the council meeting's discussion of item 18.
