Task force hears hiring advice for Urbana community responders, including role for lived experience

Urbana’s task force on alternative response heard detailed hiring advice from two community responder program managers who said the most important traits are practical people skills, de‑escalation ability and knowledge of local service networks.

Anne Larson, a program manager now at the NYU Policing Project who helped start Olympia’s crisis response unit, told the task force that building realistic scenarios and using them to shape job descriptions and interviews helped Olympia identify candidates who could handle on‑street unpredictability. "We wanted someone that was patient, knew what was open, where we could take people, where people had been trespassed from, how to be successful when we connected people to shelters," Larson said.

Raven Lozada, who built a mediation‑based program in Dayton, Ohio, emphasized hiring for de‑escalation and judgment. "You want someone with people skills. And when I say people skills, not like ‘Hi, can I take your order?’ It’s more in‑depth — do you have the ability to de‑escalate?" Lozada said.

Both guests urged avoiding rigid degree requirements that would exclude strong candidates. Lozada described a tiered staffing model — pairing licensed clinicians with peer specialists or trained civilians — to balance clinical oversight and lived experience. Larson said Olympia created job titles such as behavioral health specialist and outreach specialists and used ongoing cross‑training with police and fire.

On criminal records, Larson said local programs can write job descriptions to include people with lived incarceration experience: "If you want folks that have lived experience and have past felony convictions, ... you can make sure that you put that in the job description." Lozada cautioned that civil‑service rules and background‑check requirements in some jurisdictions can nevertheless prevent hiring such candidates; she said Dayton’s civil‑service process had eliminated some otherwise qualified people.

For screening and evaluation, both recommended scenario‑based interviews, ride‑alongs and follow‑up field observations to see how candidates perform with real variables such as crowds, noise and stressful environments. Larson recommended overlap training days with first responders to calibrate expectations and build shared practices.

The task force took questions from members about certificates and nonacademic credentials. Larson pointed to University of Washington training (BH Core) and peer‑certification programs; Lozada noted state certificate programs and 12‑week curricula her team used for skill development.

The meeting did not produce final hiring decisions; Leap will begin drafting preliminary recommendations for the task force to review at the next session.