People who work in downtown Bloomington will soon get access to training on how to de-escalate tense situations involving the unhoused. You might be surprised to hear that such training didn’t already exist, and you might be even more surprised to hear where the idea came from. Crystal Ritter from City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation and Shelby VanDerMoere from the Bloomington Fire Department participated in a popular impact training called Leadership Bloomington-Monroe County. Their group wanted to do something to help the unhoused. They discovered that frontline workers in downtown Bloomington don’t really get any kind of training on managing conflict with the local unhoused population. They produced a factfinding report and a de-escalation pamphlet, and soon, a de-escalation training video. They hope mediation techniques will reduce unneeded calls to 9-1-1.

CREDIT:

Today’s feature story on de-escalation training around the unhoused was produced by Luke Janke in partnership with The Media School at Indiana University and featured Luke’s own original music.