MISSION
To create and support community-based responses to crisis and conflict as a way to ensure public health and safety.
VISION
Transforming public safety by creating a narrative that advances ideas for alternative responses to navigate conflict and crisis and prioritizes meeting basic human needs.
GOALS
1. Support and create alternatives to policing and jail for crisis response
2. Community education and skill-building
3. Build response to urgent needs in Denver
4. Transform narrative of public safety
SPONSORSHIP
DASHR is proud to be a fiscally-sponsored organization of the Trailhead Institute, an organization focused on health equity.
LEARN MOREHISTORY
Denver Alliance for Street Health Response (DASHR) was created in 2018 to bring groups and individuals together who were interested in creating a new emergency response method as an alternative to policing and jail. This was informed by models across the country as well as local work that embodied components of a new model for Denver. As we began to create the vision for this effort, we started to identify additional ways to create alternative responses and methods of navigating conflict and crisis that were worth investing our time and energy into as well as other ongoing work that was worth lifting up.
Our work shaped into not only creating a new emergency response, but also reducing overdose and expanding health access to people experiencing homelessness. We also began responding to the sweeps of folks experiencing homelessness in Denver by distributing food and survival gear and we joined the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger, a statewide effort to end hunger within five years. We have also expanded our work to include workshops around community safety and forums on transforming policing and jails.
A core component of our idea to create a new narrative for community health and safety is to expand the role of street medics. Street medics, or action medics, are volunteers with varying degrees of medical training who help provide medical care, such as first aid, in situations frequently neglected by traditional institutions – protests, disaster areas, under-served communities, and others.1 Because of this, we will work to offer street medic trainings in collaboration with our partner Denver Action Medic Network as well as other trainings such as one focused on restorative practices.
Ultimately, we believe in transforming safety to include meeting basic human needs like housing, hunger, and healthcare to be high priorities in ensuring public safety. Community organizing and basic education can create greater connection and collective understanding to help foster a sense of safety as well. And finally, our main work has been to envision a world where policing and jails are no longer necessary and to work towards creating programs that will help us one day get to that place.
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