This is the second of four weekly reports being presented during April, Autism Awareness Month.

Newtown resident Mirelle Capozza, who along with local Police Sgt Will Chapman have been certified as trainers for PACT — Police Autism Community Training, both tend to use a modified version of the old credo that ends with, “...you’ve seen them all.”

“As we’ve been taught, ‘when you meet one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.’ So, when a police officer encounters one, it’s very important that person be regarded as an individual because everyone on the spectrum has specific concerns and behaviors,” Chapman told The Newtown Bee during a recent interview at police headquarters.

The local community policing supervisor and School Resource Officer along with Capozza, who is an engineer by profession and the parent of a child diagnosed with autism, were both certified during virtual PACT “train the trainer” sessions — with the eventual hope of ensuring every Newtown police officer, volunteer ambulance corps responder, and volunteer fire service member also takes the course.

Capozza and Chapman were both on hand during a recent Families United in Newtown (FUN) event at the congregational church, where emergency vehicles arrived so that participants from the autism support and recreation nonprofit could experience what it might be like if they ever need to travel in an ambulance, or be sheltered in a fire truck or police vehicle.

Linda Jones, co-founder of FUN, said her nonprofit provides recreational programs with the goal of focusing on the social and emotional education.

“This event was in part about the exposure to fire department, ambulance and police, so if an experience was needed for any of the kids it would not be traumatic — or would be less so due to desensitization,” she explained. “Having said that, we do have kids who are sound and light sensitive and we asked the service providers to leave them off. It was a great educational experience for all.”

To date, a number of police department and ambulance corps members have attended PACT orientation sessions.

Capozza said she learned about the course and brought the idea of training local responders and officers to First Selectman Dan Rosenthal on behalf of her own children and others on the spectrum she knows through friendships with their parents.

Speaking From Experience

Capozza became concerned several years ago, pre-COVID, when she learned of a very unpleasant interaction between a responder and a youth on the spectrum, and went looking for some type of formalized initiative to help educate all local responders to the kind of unique handling they may have to employ when encountering individuals with autism regardless of the age.

“At that point I wasn’t part of the training yet, but I presented the idea as something we really needed for first responders in our town,” Capozza recalled. She and Chapman completed their formal certification in 2022, and she subsequently filed the necessary paperwork to handle specific training for police officers.

As she and Chapman conducted their first few training sessions, Capozza said she was happy to see that attendees “were receptive and listening.”

“One of the things I was very happy to see was after the trainings people were coming up thanking us and relating what their own personal experiences were and how helpful this new information was and how they identified with the information we presented,” she related. “We try and drive the point that autistic people are very different, and you can’t generalize with a person on the spectrum.”

Capozza also reinforces that individuals with autism are present in all walks of life, and as part of customizing sessions for Newtown responders, she utilized her network of adult acquaintances on the spectrum to participate and bring their “authentic autistic voices” to those participating. Besides also getting input from the adults, she additionally reached out to her network of parents whose children are diagnosed autistic, to seek input on what they thought should be included in the local training sessions.

As far as the orientation to emergency vehicles during the FUN event, Capozza said it provided the important component of exposure to a number of local youth to the responders, their vehicles, and in the case of the NVAC, what an experience being transported in an ambulance might be like.

“We wanted the responders and children to get to meet and know each other as a person instead of just encountering a stranger in a uniform if an emergency happens,” she said. “That can be very terrifying — so we wanted these interactions to help make possible future meetings more comfortable.”

The next add-on to the Newtown PACT program, Capozza said, will be initiating a “buddy program,” so actual responders and Newtown residents and youths on the spectrum could get to know each other beyond their jobs — and their diagnosis.

“There should be zero incidents of negative experiences between our autistic kids and responders or police,” she said.

What Is PACT?

The founders of the nonprofit PACT training organization (pactautism.com) envision a world in which first responders and autistic individuals are properly equipped to communicate and support one another.

Collectively, PACT has trained thousands of first responders, including police officers, firefighters, and school resource officers, across the United States and internationally. PACT has also created a training guide for first responders that highlights the strategies of de-escalation.

Its founders believe that by modeling positive behaviors, first responders can create a safe and supportive community for autistic individuals and their families.

Chapman told The Bee that his PACT training highlights the individual who may be encountered by police or other responders.

“It’s so different from person-to-person, so if we’re approaching, treating, or interacting with an autistic person, we really need to have that understanding that we’re not responding to an autistic person because something that’s happening is a manifestation of his autism, we’re responding to a person,” Chapman said. “We’re not responding to autism, we’re responding to a person who is autistic and that is part of why they are feeling what they’re feeling — and maybe behaving the way they are behaving.”

Another important factor in the localized training, Chapman said, is giving individuals on the spectrum their own voice.

“I’m certified to deliver this training on my own to police officers, but I would much rather do it alongside Mirelle because she’s the parent of an autistic child, and having that voice included is really important,” he added. “I think that’s really important.”

Chapman is planning to make the training available for law enforcement recertification training all across the state, since PACT is among the training modules to fulfill the track officers need to complete to learn about interacting with individuals with special needs. To date, he said about 250 officers across Connecticut have received the PACT training.

NVAC EMT Gavin Arneth has been a local ambulance volunteer since just before the pandemic hit in 2020, but he was previously a firefighter who served with the Botsford department, and a police officer.

He recalled interactions with individuals on the spectrum over the years, and admits the training from Capozza and Chapman was almost immediately put to use on a call involving a youngster who was identified as being on the spectrum.

“The training really reinforced how we need to slow down and let these folks express themselves,” he said. “Earlier on as a police officer, I encountered people on the spectrum and I don’t think those interactions went as smoothly as they do now that I’ve had the training.”

Arneth could not recall learning about autism at the police academy.

“And I think having a full-blown class about it was really good,” he said. “It’s a great training, and I think the fact they hope to train all the police, ambulance, and fire departments makes so much sense. It’s easy for a first responder to not properly handle an individual during an encounter during a time of crisis.”

Arneth said the added opportunity to get young people on the spectrum inside emergency vehicles like during the FUN event was equally important.

“Not having been inside an ambulance, when they may face having a five-point restraint put on them when they are on a stretcher can be very disconcerting for someone on the spectrum,” he said. “So giving them the chance to experience this outside a crisis situation will be very impactful for them.”

Arneth said everyone in the NVAC who was part of that training he attended, from the newest recruits to 30-plus year veterans, “were able to take something from the training. It was very, very well received.”

Arneth said the PACT training is extremely valuable for anyone taking it, because those responders may also encounter a person on the spectrum who may be in crisis when they are off duty as well.

“There’s so many of these folks out there in our population,” he said, “so being able to better identify them and be situationally aware is going to be very helpful.”

Next week, read about the programming available for individuals on the spectrum from Newtown Youth and Family Services, and how that agency is leading the call to rename April as “Autism Acceptance Month.”

Reach Editor John Voket at john@thebee.com