Urbana’s Alternative Response Task Force convened on Dec. 11 for a second focus-group session where consultants from LEAP walked stakeholders through national community-responder models, local call narratives and next steps for designing a Urbana program.

The LEAP presentation opened with a review of 911 data patterns and a decision to focus the task force on the set of call types other cities commonly assign to community responders. The consultants explained that programs typically concentrate on service-connection needs (housing, food, referrals), mental-health and welfare checks, substance-use responses, and conflict resolution — and that the way calls are categorized shapes program structure, training and where teams are housed.

On safety, presenters said large program datasets show low rates of severe responder injury and low rates of emergency backup. One presenter summarized the field: "in the last over 500,000 calls ... there hasn't been someone killed or seriously injured," and cited program-specific emergency-backup rates in the low fractions of a percent. Consultants emphasized those outcomes depend heavily on program design, training and responder selection rather than on whether responders are armed.

LEAP described that community responders request police assistance in roughly 2–3% of incidents for non-emergency reasons — for example when a caller asks for an official police report or the situation involves persistent nuisance or trespass issues. The consultants distinguished between emergency 'lights-and-sirens' backup (very rare) and lower-level referrals where police presence or filing a report is needed.

The group reviewed case studies from Dayton, Durham and Evanston. Dayton’s mediation unit reportedly handled a large share of welfare checks and disorderly-subject calls; Durham’s data showed many trespass/unwanted-person and welfare-check incidents; and Evanston’s program manages a range of low-violence calls — everything from 'lost and confused' persons to municipal-code complaints. Presenters read actual dispatch narratives and explained why each was placed in a primary category for program consideration.

Participants pressed several operational questions. One member asked whether research compares community responders to police — including CIT-trained officers — on use-of-force and other outcomes. Amos, a remote participant, said direct apples-to-apples comparisons are difficult because responder types are dispatched to different calls; he said recent academic studies exist and promised to share those studies with the task force. A domestic-violence advocate asked specifically about protocols when responders encounter evidence of domestic violence; presenters said programs emphasize relevant training and referrals but that written sample protocols were not immediately available for the meeting and would be sought for follow-up.

The session reviewed who typically staffs response teams: trained civilians, clinicians/social workers, EMTs/paramedics and peer-support specialists, sometimes in hybrid teams. LEAP read sample job minimums from other programs — commonly high-school diploma or GED plus relevant experience, with bachelor’s or master’s requirements in some jurisdictions — and said many programs prefer multilingual responders. Training commitments commonly run around 11+ weeks with recurring refreshers and cover CAD/radio use, scene safety, de-escalation, trauma-informed care, and responder self-care.

Pay and recruitment surfaced in discussion. LEAP gave an illustrative field-range for hourly-equivalent pay from $25 to $50 and noted some programs advocate parity with policing; a participant later cited a Dayton example with mid-level salaries in the regional context. Task-force members emphasized that hiring and pay decisions should reflect Urbana’s local capacity and priorities.

As a practical next step, LEAP distributed an "85-scenario" assignment: stakeholders will be sent 85 anonymized Urbana call narratives and asked to mark whether each is appropriate for community response (yes/no/unsure) and to provide short comments. LEAP also committed to gathering co-response data from local police, programmatic performance metrics from other jurisdictions, and specific research that compares outcomes across models. One-on-one follow-up meetings with task-force members were scheduled for January and February.

The meeting closed with housekeeping: the next focus-group session is set for Jan. 29, 2026, at the IMC; presentation materials and a previous session video were listed as available on the city's meetings website. No formal votes or motions were taken during the session; the meeting was informational and focused on design, data collection and stakeholder input.

The task force now awaits the 85-scenario packet, the promised program metrics and shared research, and one-on-one follow-ups to refine recommendations for Urbana's alternative-response design.