Trainers and survivors warn that abrupt DMH takeover of Team 2 risks losing relationships and lived-experience component

Kristen, who created Team 2 and coordinates the training under a contract held by Vermont Care Partners, told the House Health Care committee that Team 2 is a 12-year-old, scenario-based, multidisciplinary training that brings EMTs, police, mental-health clinicians, dispatchers and other first responders together for regionally delivered sessions.

"This is a voluntary training in Vermont…we run through three scenarios during the day," Kristen said, describing the program’s regional delivery, a steering committee of state and local partners, and the central role of people with lived experience in those sessions.

Kristen told lawmakers she learned the Department of Mental Health plans to take Team 2 in house and that "there's been no communication. There's been no transition plan." She warned that the program’s effectiveness depends on long-standing interagency relationships and an instructor network (about 35–40 instructors statewide) that would be difficult to replicate without a deliberate handover.

A person with lived experience who serves on Team 2’s steering committee, identified in testimony as Chris, described the program’s personal impact: "This program has saved my life," she told the committee. She said hearing lived experience helps trainees understand crisis from the inside, humanizes people in crisis, and changes responders’ behavior in ways that can reduce force and repeated crisis calls.

Detective Corporal Crystal Wren of the Burlington Police Department, a Team 2 trainer since 2013, told lawmakers the program creates trusted relationships across agencies and that the curriculum — which includes scenario work, video, body-camera review and legal updates — requires substantial year-round coordination. "If it gets on a chopping block, it will really threaten those strong ties that we already have," she said.

Committee members asked whether DMH had provided a plan or cost estimate for taking the program in house. Kristen and trainers urged a phased transition that preserves the instructor pool and peer-speaker participation, including shadowing and a deliberate handover. Committee members said DMH had prepared a document responding to some questions but asked DMH to provide fuller details and a cost estimate for internal delivery.

The witnesses asked the committee to consider preserving Team 2's model — especially the involvement of people with lived experience and the regional instructor network — and requested any transfer include a formal transition plan and funding to maintain instructor coordination.

Next steps: Committee members asked DMH to supply a transition plan and estimated costs for internal delivery. Witnesses said they are willing to collaborate on a handover but urged that training not be interrupted while a transfer is planned and executed.