Portland, Maine

I’ve had a hectic few days! On Tuesday I visited Bedford Police Department where I spoke with Lt Graham about their implementation of the ALEC training. I then spent over 2.5 hours taking the scenic route to Portland, Maine where I’d arranged to meet Matt Brown, the creator of the ASET911 programme. Matt and his wife Nancy very kindly took me to dinner on Tuesday evening when I arrived (thank you!).

ASET stands for Autism Safety Education & Training and Matt has been teaching his classes since 2003. I spent Wednesday on a whistle-stop tour of some of the organisations that have been heavily involved over the years.

First stop was the Autism Society of Maine (ASM), who Matt works extensively with. The programme began when he realised he wanted to give something back, and ASM were looking for an Information Specialist for Law Enforcement. They basically have volunteers who become experts in specific subjects and those people take on any relevant tasks. So Matt gets all of their Law Enforcement queries. Interestingly he has seen a shift in requests from Departments needing trained (because he’s done them all!) to individuals or families seeking advice on court procedures. He’s therefore looking to expand his training to defence lawyers, prosecutors and judges, however is finding the uptake slow. ASM provide a focal point, and visiting just reaffirmed the fact I need to speak to Scottish Autism to find out what they provide.

We then moved on to the Capital Clubhouse in Augusta. I had never heard of Clubhouses but they are an international organisation that provides people with mental illness or developmental disabilities with a safe space where they can make friends, learn, work and generally be supported to be the best they can be. Capital Clubhouse has over 800 members who can come as little or as often as they want. There are quite a few autistic members and I was fortunate to speak to a few of them who’d taken part in previous training for Law Enforcement officers. They told me what they wanted from their police, how they’d like to be interacted with as individuals and things to look out for. It was incredibly valuable information and on top of that a really cool place! I found out we have one in Glasgow so that’s another thing on the To Do list, make sure G Division know about it.

From there we moved on to the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro. It is the sole Law Enforcement training centre in Maine, so every agency uses it, and Matt has taught the ASET class to every new intake of officers there since 2004. David Tyrol, the Basic Law Enforcement Training Program co-ordinator showed us around and answered questions on the feedback the class had been given and how useful the students found it. It was really interesting to hear once again about the similarities and differences in training – they do an 18 week course then go on to their individual agencies for more, so quite a bit more than we do.

After a very quick stop to meet one of Matt’s old colleagues who does a lot of CIT work, we moved on to Freeport where Matt was doing a training session. There was a good turn out from the local Fire Department in particular and it was great to see it first hand. Matt weaves his own experiences as a Law Enforcement officer and a father to a son with autism through the whole class, giving examples and making the theory understandable and real. He also had assistance from Deigan, a young autistic man who had been getting into a bit of trouble with police but who, with help from Matt, is now moving away from that. I spoke with Deigan and his grandmother, who cares for him, and again got some great insights. The training was similar in content to the other places I’ve been which just confirms the key points and I’ve now got some great templates to use.

So despite the fact my heid was burst after all that (by somewhere around 4pm my words weren’t working very well..!) I had a great day. Once again I learned so much and people went out of their way to help. That was echoed again this morning with a visit to South Portland PD where Chief Googins and Lt Clark met me to tell me how they’d progressed the training in the town. Every one of their officers are autism and CIT trained and they have employed a clinician who follows up (and attends) mental health/crisis/substance misuse calls. It sounded like a really useful project, albeit the problem for many people is accessing support or care without insurance. The NHS has its faults but we should be thankful for it every day.

I am extremely grateful to Matt for arranging everything and spending a valuable day off ferrying me around. It was jam-packed but I enjoyed it and learned loads. Thank you for sharing.