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Council accepts community safety department update; CARE team director to depart, co‑response questions referred to public safety committee
Summary
The City Council accepted a status report on the Community Safety Department and the CARE team, learned that Director Liz Speakman is leaving, and referred remaining operational questions — including coordination with police co‑response and dispatch practices — to the council's public safety committee.
The Cambridge City Council on April 28 received an update on the Community Safety Department and its CARE team, accepted the report and referred operational questions about co‑response and dispatching to the public safety committee by unanimous vote.
Leadership change: Director Liz Speakman told the council she will leave the city to join a regional crisis organization. "If you're in a situation and you have a loved one who is really struggling... I would call this team every day," Speakman said in an emotional address summarizing the team's mission and why she fought to stand it up.
Operations and performance: Staff described the team's training and outreach and said dispatching and utilization have increased as the CARE schedule expanded. Program staff reported that as they expanded to more days and hours, the percentage of eligible calls they were dispatched to rose; Speakman told the council they had been "averaging about 45% of the calls that we're eligible for" earlier in the rollout and were seeing higher dispatch rates after expanding hours.
Co‑response and dispatch questions: Councilors pressed staff on instances when CARE and a police co‑response unit both arrived on the same calls. CARE leadership said they are dispatched through 911 on their own channel and that police co‑response units sometimes "self‑attach" to calls by listening to the public channel; CARE staff and emergency communications described ongoing education and coordination work with dispatchers to increase appropriate CARE dispatching and to build trust about safety protocols.
Council action and next steps: The council accepted the report and referred the item to the public safety committee (9-0) for further review, including questions about dispatch practices, call codes the CARE team can respond to, and evaluation plans for the program. Councilors and staff said they want clearer metrics and an independent evaluation partner; staff reported that an outside program evaluation partner had not yet been secured.
Why it matters: CARE is Cambridge's unarmed crisis-response and outreach program. Councilors and staff framed the update as an early-stage report for a program that has expanded rapidly and will require further operational decisions on call routing, co‑response protocols and performance measurement.
