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Chandler Fire Department trains to better assist autistic community members

a red Chandler Fire truck
KJZZ

Chandler’s Fire Department staff have recently completed training to become a Certified Autism Center and better assist autistic community members.

Assistant Fire Chief Scott Chapman said that likely due to a rise in awareness and diagnosis, staff and volunteers have reported interacting with more community members that could be considered autistic or neurodivergent.

The question was: How can the assistance they offer adapt to better suit people’s needs?

“We wanted people that are actual experts in the field to provide training for our people to be able to help them from a first responder perspective,” Chapman explained.

Chapman said the department is now a Certified Autism Center, which ties back into its purpose as a public service.

“I would like to think of the organization and the fire service as being kind of community leaders and if we can show that, hey, we– we're aware of it, we care about it, we want to make sure that we're, you know, we're doing intentional things to actually pursue, you know, good customer service and good treatment of our people that hopefully that speaks to the community as a whole to raise that awareness.

And he said awareness of how a disability or medical condition might affect someone’s reaction in an emergency situation can be especially important, or even life-saving.

“We are in no way experts on autism,” said Chapman. “What we are experts in is mitigating emergent situations in the moment. And so I want to make sure that our paramedics and firefighters, when they're in the field, have the ability to have another path as far as diagnostic possibilities.”

He said he expects there to be even more to learn when the certification is due for renewal in two years.

Kirsten Dorman is a field correspondent at KJZZ. Born and raised in New Jersey, Dorman fell in love with audio storytelling as a freshman at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2019.
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