'Good for society.' New bill aims to expand autism awareness training for law enforcement
The new bill would expand that training for all police officers across the state.
More Stories
April is Autism Acceptance Month, and a new bill out of Bridgeport aims to expand training for law enforcement.
Police in Connecticut are already required to go through basic and review training to handle incidents, such as wandering, that involve juveniles and adults with autism spectrum disorder, nonverbal learning disorder or cognitive impairment.
The new bill would expand that training for all police officers across the state.
“It’s good for society," state Sen. Herron Keyon Gaston says. "We see there’s a growing number of young people that have autism, so we want to make sure our officers have every resource at their disposal to be able to handle a situation or a crisis in an effective, but also safe manner.”
Ashley McClain is founder and director of the nonprofit Linked Autism Safety project, which has helped train nearly 1,000 first responders in the last two years.
“We are already doing this training," McClain says. "It’s certainly something that first responders want more and more of because now there’s more of an awareness about it."
