How New York City responds to emergencies with emotionally disturbed people
A man sitting on the stairs with his head down. Shutterstock
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is looking for help conducting a survey. A Feb. 1 meeting in Long Island City will discuss the details of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, according to the City Record. The biannual survey asks 10,000 high students and 3,000 middle school students about their health. The Department for the Aging has retroactively awarded a $960,915 contract renewal to Sunset Park Health Council to fund senior services.
The Robin Hood Foundation has released the agenda for its upcoming conference on poverty. “No City Limits: Reimagining the Poverty Fight 2019” will take place in New York City on Feb. 4, according to a press release. “Poverty is a pervasive problem that requires partnership, collaboration, and all perspectives to confront,” Robin Hood CEO Wes Moore said in the press release. “This year’s No City Limits conference will bring together the brightest minds – uniting policy makers, public servants, thought leaders, data experts, and people living in poverty – to address this urgent question on how we can create mobility from poverty.”
The event will start with a discussion between Moore and Sheldon Danziger, president of the Russell Sage Foundation, about how mobility plays into poverty. Harvard University professor Raj Chetty will present insights into new data and New York Times op-ed columnist Nick Kristof will discuss poverty worldwide. See the full lineup here.
A coalition of nonprofits is backing Gov. Andrew Cuomo on a proposed change to the state’s Freedom of Information Law. The proposal would ban the publication of mugshots and arrest details to protect personal privacy, according to a Jan. 25 letter in support of the change.
“Many Americans incorrectly assume that a ‘mugshot’ means that a person has committed a crime,” reads the letter. “They do not realize that it is the first step in a process that often leads to charges being dropped or dismissed, or a verdict of ‘not guilty’ being rendered. The proliferation of ‘mugshot’ websites and their rash sharing of misleading, often incomplete, arrest information and photos does nothing to communicate this fact and only fuels stigma and discrimination.”
Signatories to the letter include: CASES, Center for Community Alternatives, Center for Employment Opportunities, College & Community Fellowship, Correctional Association of New York, EAC Network, The Fortune Society, Greenburger Center for Social and Criminal Justice
Legal Action Center, Osborne Association, TASC of the Capital District, Inc., Women’s Prison Association
Community Access has something to say about New York City’s efforts to improve its response to incidents involving emotionally distressed New Yorkers. Mayor Bill de Blasio convened a task force in June to develop a citywide strategy following controversial incidents involving 911 calls. A final plan has yet to be released, but a new position paper outlines the issues the task force will consider, which the paper states arise out of the city’s failure to adequately deal with the underlying issues affecting people both before and after an emergency situation. Read the paper below:
NYC Crisis Response Discuss... by on Scribd