SJC Exchange Library

Originally posted by Allie Preston on 09/30/2025

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I am writing to share a recent report from Center for American Progress that can serve as a resource for any local government or community stakeholder seeking to learn about expanding their local public safety workforce. The report brings together lessons learned from interviews with jurisdictions and subject matter experts and research from the field to illustrate the type of work underway in communities across the country to build and resource programs that hire specially trained professionals to address emergencies, prevent escalation to violence, and assess individuals' immediate and long-term service needs.. 

This report

• Defines and highlights different types of professionals who have more recently been integrated into public safety response systems in jurisdictions across the country including community responders, community violence intervention professionals, and reporting and investigation professionals

• Lays out crucial decisions that jurisdictions must make when creating new public safety roles and discusses how cities and counties have navigated the decision-making process

• Answers frequently asked questions related to using data to design and implement new public safety roles, identifying key experiences, skills and training needed to create a prepared workforce, building new city infrastructure and diverse funding streams to support the workforce, and engaging government and community stakeholders to ensure that the workforce can deliver on public safety outcomes.

While no two cities will take the same approach, cities have learned important workforce development lessons through implementation that can be applied across cities and program types.

You can access the report here: Expanding the Public Safety Workforce: How Cities Can Create New Professional Roles in Public Safety Response

Please share widely and feel free to reach out if you have any questions about the report. Thank you!