Bart Barta
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
That's a great question. And one of the things that I try to stress again is patience. It's trying to slow things down the best you possibly can. You are correct. As officers respond to various calls for service, they're responding based on the information that was received. And oftentimes that comes from a dispatcher, right?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
A communications operator, 911 operator who's giving the information to the officer. So oftentimes when the officers are arriving on the scene, they're responding with only a little bit of information and they have to quickly assess and determine what is going on in sometimes only seconds. And so they're trying to process all this information as quickly as possible.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
If the individual does not have a weapon, meaning they have a knife or a gun or something like that, this affords us an opportunity to try to slow things down, right? To try to practice some patience and telling them that, when you're trying to communicate with somebody with autism, use the fewest words possible. Use concrete, simple language.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Because many people with autism process language differently than the rest of us. If you tell someone with autism, freeze, that means something to you, it means something to me, but that means something completely different to them. You need to use simple, concrete, direct language. You need to keep it as simple as in as few words possible, giving them as much time to respond as necessary, right?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
You may have someone who is a serious eloper, and all of a sudden, they bolt, and they take off, and they start running, and maybe they're starting to run for the middle of a busy highway or a busy street. That officer at that point in time might have to go hands-on. They might have to use force to stop that person. Some folks with autism experience have no fear of danger.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
So they might just take off and run out right in the middle of the street. In that case, the officer has to go hands-on immediately. But one of the things I try to tell them, if ever possible, try to avoid touching them. If somebody with autism is actively trying to hurt another person, Just because you have a disability doesn't give you a license to inflict violence on another person.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
That's when the pediatrician diagnosed him. And then we later followed up with a visit to the pediatric neurologist to confirm the pediatrician's diagnosis. Not knowing anything about autism at all, it set myself and my wife on this journey to try to learn as much as we possibly could.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
You might have to stop that person from inflicting violence onto another person. You might have to go hands-on. And we talk about what you should do if, in fact, you do go hands-on with somebody with autism. We give some tips and strategies and things like that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Those are the key things right there is helping them understand, one, the processing of your instructions and your language and understanding this too, Tony. And I can bring this up. You have a large percentage of people with autism that are nonverbal or low verbal. And if they can speak, it might only be a few words.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Now, having said that, just because someone doesn't have verbal language doesn't mean they don't understand you. Doesn't mean they're even low intelligence, right? Or low IQ. It doesn't mean that they might not even be able to communicate with you. And we talk about the other ways in which people who are nonverbal or low verbal can and oftentimes do communicate.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And we talk about how to deal with that. Sensory issues are also something that we have to address when we're dealing with individuals with autism. Why? Because you're a law enforcement officer. You're coming to the scene, right? Oftentimes in a sensory machine. You're driving a patrol car, right, that has lights, bright lights, that has a siren, and you're coming onto the scene.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
That just in and of itself can create so much anxiety in that person with autism that now it's escalating.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
escalated the situation in this person right so now what do we need to do to try to help them manage their anxiety that they're experiencing because of the sensory input that they're receiving so we address things like that how to turn off your lights how to turn off your siren if you can safely turn off your lights safely and turn off your siren your radio your police radio sometimes the sound of the police radio can be unsettling for some people with autism
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
a barking canine companion. These kinds of things can be on for people with autism. So we address the sensory issues. We address that as well in the trainings.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Never been asked this question before, but that's a great question. So normally what happens in law enforcement agencies is, this is apart from autism. I'm going to address this because this is where most of this will occur.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Law enforcement agencies will create scenario-based training in which law enforcement officers will either have to move up the use of force continuum or move down the use of force continuum. For example... When you start to introduce lethal weapons to a scenario, it increases the chances, obviously, for a higher use of force response to whatever that officer is dealing with.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
We wanted to give our son the greatest opportunity at reaching his fullest potential in life, whatever that might be. We didn't know at the time would he even be able to communicate with us. He was verbal, only spoke a few words. He engaged in a lot of echolalia, things like that. So to say we were scared would be like an understatement.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Let's say it's a knife. One of the things, too, that officers are trained to do, especially when you're dealing with individuals who have knives, if and whenever possible—and I have to say this, if and whenever possible, because every situation is different, okay? There are no two situations that are identical. What is your friend is time and distance.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
If I can create more distance between me and that person with that knife, it increases my chances of survival. And the more time, if I try to engage this person in conversation, right, we can hopefully de-escalate the situation. I will say this. There is a scenario that I use in my training, and this is a story that came out of an agency in Canada years ago.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
This agency in Canada had created a registry for individuals with autism. And what I really liked about this registry, say, for example, say 911 gets a call to the residents. This home has already been flagged because the caregiver or the parent or guardian has registered their address with the 911 center.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And so when first responders are en route, the dispatcher at the 911 center will let the officer or the firefighter know that there is an occupant in that home with autism and they will provide them their name, physical descriptors, things like that. But on top of all that, it'll include things like, does the person have sensory issues? Does the person have communication challenges?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Are they verbal? Are they nonverbal? Are Talk about whether or not they have self-regulating behaviors that they might engage in to try to calm themselves down. And so try to help officers understand this. Part of that includes things like what sort of things might also help calm them down.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
You'll see individuals with autism, many of them have developed coping mechanisms that will help them self-regulate, that will help them manage their behaviors, right? Which oftentimes to us, neurotypicals, folks that don't have autism, it might look unusual. It might look odd, right? Because there's maybe hand flapping. There might be body rocking.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
There could be a number of different things that's going on to the outside person or somebody who's not familiar with autism. They'll think, wow, this looks really strange. These sorts of things can be included on the registry. Also included on the registry is whatever that person's special interest is. What are the things that they like?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
This particular department in Canada, when they were en route to this call, they received a call on a young man with autism who had barricaded himself in the basement of the family home with a knife. No one else in the home but this young man with a knife. So now these... responding police officers are going to this residence. And they learn all this about this young man with autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Guess what else they learn, Tony? They learn through this registry that his special interest was ice hockey. So when the two first responding units got there on the scene, they headed down to the basement. But because of training, they know that time and distance can help keep them alive. So they kept a safe distance between themselves and this young man.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
What do you think they started talking to him about, Tony, when they arrived on the scene? Ice hockey. Why? Because that's his special interest. So what happened? They started to build some rapport with this young man by engaging him in what was his special interest. After talking to him for about 15, 20 minutes about ice hockey, right?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
They said to him, Mike, we would love to talk to you about ice hockey, but you've got to put the knife down. And what do you think Mike did, Tony? He put the knife down. So now, Tony, let's be fair. Is this going to work in every situation? No, probably not. But it can. And the reason why it worked in this particular situation was because these officers had information.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
We realized that we were really going to have to pour ourselves into him and try to help him reach his full potential. While all of this is going on, I'm working as a police officer and for a management role. I was a lieutenant at the time at the police department in South Florida where we were living.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
They had knowledge about this person that helped them when they arrived on the scene to de-escalate a very volatile situation. If they had not received any training, they had not received this information, things might have been handled much differently.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Let me just say this real quick to your listeners. It is important that first responders receive training in how to recognize and respond to autism. There's also a part that I think sometimes we're missing, and that is this. As parents, as caregivers, and guardians, we need to prepare our loved ones for interactions with law enforcement and with other first responders. What does that mean?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
We need to help provide them with some education and some training in how to safely self-disclose their autism to a first responder. I'm a firm believer, Tony, that if a person with autism, at the onset of a contact with a law enforcement officer, the chances of that interaction going well have just increased substantially.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Even if the officer's had zero training in autism, if an officer approaches, say, my son, and he says, hi, sir, what are you doing? And my son says, officer, my name is Daniel, and I have autism. Can I show you my wallet card? The officer's going to say, sure. And then my son's going to reach into his back pocket, and he's going to take out his wallet.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And there's a card that's in his wallet that says, my name is Daniel, and I have autism spectrum disorder. And when I get nervous or anxious, I do the following things, right? And then it'll say things like, there'll be some strategies. To help me better understand you, please do the following. Then on the back of the card is emergency contact information.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
That includes my name and phone number, my wife's name and phone number. So if law enforcement officers want to reach out and contact us. The wallet card is just one of many tools that can help individuals with autism and help safely self-disclose their autism. They want to learn more about the wallet card. They can go to the website for the wallet card. It's www.justjust.org.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
If you go to that website, there is a link there on the page where the parent or caregiver can request a personalized wallet card for their loved one. What I love about this is each card can be personalized. Because autism is not a one-size-fits-all disability.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
So they can customize the card to speak to whatever unique challenges and needs their loved one has and include their emergency contact information on the back. The wallet card is free. It doesn't cost anybody a dime. I'm proud to say I've been a part of that wallet card program now for over 10 years.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
It was a partnership between the University of Miami Centers for Autism-Related Disabilities, the Disability Independence Group, and the Coral Gables Police Department. Think about that wallet card. If there's one takeaway here today that you can take action on and help your loved one on the spectrum, the wallet card would be the one thing that I would suggest that they get.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Thank you, Tony. It's been a pleasure. And I just, again, I'll tell you, thank you for what you do. You provide a tremendous public service to this autism community and it's large and it's broad. Keep doing the great work that you're doing.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And I quickly realized that law enforcement was not training its officers in how to recognize and respond to individuals on the autism spectrum. I kept seeing stories in the news involving encounters between law enforcement and individuals on the autism spectrum, and they weren't favorable stories. I really felt like we could do better in this area.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
So I was working for the Coral Gables Police Department at the time, which is a bedroom community in Miami. In the city of Coral Gables is the University of Miami, and they have something there called the Centers for Autism and Related Disabilities. So I reached out to them. I see this real need here in developing some curriculum for law enforcement. Can you help me? I'm not an
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
expert in autism, but I needed to go to the experts in autism so that we could create some evidence-based training for law enforcement officers to help them better recognize and respond to individuals with autism so that at the end of the day, the individuals with autism is kept safe as possible and the officers remain safe if possible. So what happened out of that meeting?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
They agreed to help me and assist me on this and set me on this journey while still working full time for the police department. I started working with something called the Crisis Intervention Team Training Program or CIT program. It was a program that came about to aid law enforcement officers and how to better recognize and respond to individuals who might have mental illness.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I started working with this program in Miami-Dade County, probably 18 years now. I started working with this program and started training South Florida law enforcement officers, primarily in Miami-Dade County. I would come into this 40-hour block of CIT instruction, and I would do about a two, two-and-a-half-hour block on autism. And I did this, I don't know, for probably more than 10 years.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
After doing that, as I was getting closer to retirement, and I was still doing this training, but because of my full-time responsibilities as a law enforcement commander, I couldn't really pour myself in full-time into doing this kind of training. So as I could see, I was getting closer and closer to retirement. My wife and I had this discussion.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
We decided together to try to launch a training business, training consulting business, so that we could work with first responders to help them better recognize and respond to individuals with autism. That's what I've been doing ever since. Sounds like a great idea. What happened next for you? So I retired in the end of 2017. Before retiring, I had launched Autism Safety 101.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I travel all across the United States of America providing training primarily to law enforcement, but I also train firefighters, EMS. I've trained correctional personnel, security personnel. And I really feel that it's crucial all first responders receive this training. And so that's where I got started.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Generally, the class is specific to the audience. So if it's primarily a law enforcement, say it's a police department, I was just recently contacted by a police department in Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, Chamblee, Georgia. Chief of Police contacted me and asked me if I could do a couple of eight-hour trainings there for his officers and the local law enforcement partners in that area.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
We've scheduled two dates in April, and I will go up there, and that class will just encompass primarily law enforcement officers. I do trainings right now. In fact, I have some fire rescue in South Florida. They have me come in twice a month to provide autism training to their firefighters. And that is just specific to firefighting. There is some overlap.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
There is times, occasionally, and it doesn't happen very often, maybe less than 5% of my trainings include a mixed first responder audience, meaning there will be police in the audience and there will be firefighters in the audience. That doesn't happen very often. Normally, it's centric to whatever audience is. So I have a training for school resource officers.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
People may not realize this, but policing in schools is a lot different than policing on the streets. So I come in and I have a background in that as well. When I was a sergeant earlier in my career, I used to oversee and supervise school resource officers. I have a training specific to them. And we talk about students with autism in the schools and things like that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Training that I do is tailored specifically to whatever first responder audience I'm dealing with.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
It's a great question. So here's the thing, right? This is really important. I have to start off with helping these officers understand what autism is. If you don't understand the challenges and the needs of people with autism, you're not going to recognize it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And unfortunately, this is what happens in some cases too often where law enforcement officers do not receive meaningful training in autism. Officers will oftentimes misinterpret the person's behavior or their lack of communication. And they'll take one course of action where if they had some understanding about autism, then they might take a different course of action.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I have to break it down into its simplest parts so these officers truly understand what it's like to be in the body of a person with autism and understand all those unique challenges that come along with that disability. Part of that is, is helping them to understand when and where we can to try to slow things down as much as we possibly can. We have to be patient.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
We have to give them time to process what it is that we're asking them or telling them to do. if we expect them to immediately respond or comply with our questions or requests, in many cases, it's not going to happen. It's imperative that law enforcement officers understand these challenges.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Once they understand the challenges that follow this disability, then we implement the strategies and how to de-escalate possible crisis situations or meltdowns that might be occurring. So it's not like There's a silver bullet here and you can come in and go, okay, do this every time. And then everything is wonderful and it's great because it is a wide spectrum and it affects people differently.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
It's been said once, I think it was Dr. Stephen Shore that came out with this saying. He said, if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism, right? No two people with autism are identical. And that's important too, because law enforcement officers, we are trained to recognize pattern. We are great at recognizing patterns.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
If you've seen something enough times, you go, oh, I know what this is. That's a little bit more challenging when you're dealing with somebody with autism who might have serious communication challenges, who struggles socially, who might even have an intellectual disability on top of that, coupled with co-occurring mental health disorders and other things. So let me say this to you.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And this is one thing I hope your listeners take away if they're looking to help law enforcement officers and their communities receive this kind of training is you can't do this online in a half an hour or an hour. You can't do it. I tell chiefs of police, they'll contact me from time to time and they'll say, Bart, can you come train the troops? And I'll say, sure thing, chief.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
What do you have in mind? And they'll say, well, what about roll calls? Now, roll calls are like briefings that occur at the very beginning of the shift. You used to see it like if you watch shows like Hill Street Blues, the sergeant would come in, he would address the officers and things and give them kind of the instructions for the day. Those are roll calls, right?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Generally, roll calls don't last more than 15 minutes to a half an hour. So I asked the chief, what do you have in mind? And they'll say, what about a roll call? And I'll say, how long do your roll calls last? And they'll say, we can do 45 minutes. And then I stop them right then and there. And I tell them, chief, all due respect,
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I can come in, I can talk to your officers for 45 minutes about individuals with autism, but they're not going to get much out of it. And they scratch their heads and they look puzzled, right? Because I can't understand this, right? And I tell them, don't do anything less than four hours. I hate doing four-hour trainings because when I do four-hour training sessions with law enforcement officers,
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I feel like it's like they're trying to drink water from a fire hose, right? It's coming at them fast and hard and quick. And it doesn't allow for the engagement or the interaction that I really like to see occur in these training sessions with law enforcement officers. So I tell all these chiefs, I tell all these sheriffs, don't do anything less than eight.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
But I will tell you, Tony, unfortunately, a lot of law enforcement commanders, chiefs of police and sheriffs are reluctant to do eight-hour trainings. I'm very encouraged when law enforcement agencies do eight-hour trainings, but I refuse to do anything less than four because I don't want to give short shrift. And some people say, what about an online training? Why don't you do online training?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And I tell them, because one, quite honestly, Tony, most police officers don't want to watch online training if it's more than 30 minutes. then they start tuning out. And if they're not compelled to sit there and watch it, they'll be easily distracted. They'll be looking at their cell phone or one thing or another, and they're not really learning it, right? They're not really getting it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
They're not really understanding it. Is it a lot of work to do in-person training? It is. But I personally have a vested interest in this.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I tell all these officers all the time. I have a son who's 21 years old and who is more than likely going to come in contact with you at some point in time. Others, it's not a question of if. It's only a matter of when they come in contact with a law enforcement officer.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
In fact, there's studies recently that show that individuals with autism are seven times more likely to encounter a law enforcement officer than someone without autism. OK, so there's been some studies too recently by the time I think that by the time they're 18 years old, more than a quarter of them have already encountered a law enforcement officer. Wow, that's pretty staggering numbers.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
I will say this. It's not all doom and gloom. I am optimistic. I'm seeing law enforcement leaders, sheriffs, chiefs of police are really starting to embrace this and understanding that people with autism are a significant part of their communities. They're a part of the citizenry that they serve. Really important. If you want to serve your citizens well, understand your citizens.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And those agencies that invest the time, I get a lot of feedback after my trainings. Sometimes years later, I'll have officers that will email me or they'll call me and they'll say, I got to tell you about this call that I went on. Let me tell you what happened.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And I'm so glad that I came through your training because now I felt so confident in handling this situation and they had a successful outcome. If you don't do this kind of training, you're setting your officers up for failure. And I don't blame these officers. I've seen stories in the news where officers have had, unfortunately, negative contacts with individuals with autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
If you would, tell us what you do now. I'm a retired law enforcement commander. I had a 31-year law enforcement career. 18 years ago, my world, the world of my family was forever changed. My wife and I have three sons, all adults. Our youngest adult son was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was three years old. He went in for his three-year pediatric checkup.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And if you go and you start looking into the situation, what you will discover in most of these cases, these officers that you're seeing in the news that had these horrific incidents involving individuals with autism, they've had little to no training in autism. Now, whose fault is that? Is that the officer's fault?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
A lot of people in the autism community and parents and caregivers, they get upset. I've seen them say that officer should be fired. He should be suspended without pay. And I tell them every time I said, have you looked in to see whether or not this officer's had any training whatsoever? And in most cases, they haven't. Is it fair to blame the officer?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Because the truth is, Tony, you don't know what you don't know. And if you don't have this kind of training, you're not going to understand. That's why I do what I do. And I do it passionately. Every time I do these trainings, I try to bring folks in the autism community into these training sessions.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
Generally, it happens towards the end of the training where I give them an opportunity to interact and engage with these first responders because that's where the most significant part of this training occurs is that interaction that occurs between individuals with autism and law enforcement officers.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
And the more opportunities we can create where we can bring people with autism into a setting with law enforcement officers in a non-crisis situation... It's a win for the individual with autism, and it's a win for the first responder.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Bart Barta: Training First Responders for Autism Encounters
So I encourage these officers, I encourage these command staffs with these police departments and these fire departments to have your personnel regularly engage with people on the spectrum. Because again, like I said earlier, if you meet one person with autism, you met one person with autism, and it's a wide spectrum.