2023 Down South Restorative Justice Conference

Community Responders: How Restorative Practices Can Apply to 911 Response

Today, law enforcement officers are dispatched for most 911 calls for service, even low-priority calls that don’t require an armed police response. To reduce overreliance on police, de- escalate situations, and connect people to helpful resources to address root causes of crime, several jurisdictions around the country have implemented "community responder" programs. Community responder programs dispatch civilian teams trained in de-escalation, conflict resolution, and mediation to handle low-risk issues related to neighbor disputes, trespassing, juvenile disturbances, and other low-level conflicts. Currently, these programs exist in cities such as Durham, Louisville, Atlanta, St. Petersburg, and Dayton. These programs provide a new opportunity for cities to bring restorative and transformational justice principles to 911 response.

This session will highlight how existing programs train community responders and how those responders achieve success on the street. It will discuss how these responders can benefit from training in restorative principles as well as referral systems to restorative justice providers. Raven Loaiza will provide on-the-ground insights from Dayton’s Mediation Response Unit, which dispatches civilian responders to calls for service related to conflict, from noise complaints to neighbor disputes. Nicole Guincho will introduce St. Petersburg’s CALL program and highlight their successes in Florida. Major Franklin will moderate the panel and speak to why community responder models and restorative justice are important from a law enforcement perspective
Nicole Guincho has been in the behavioral health field for more than 22 years. Mrs. Guincho has been with Gulf Coast JFCS since 2004. She is the Vice President of Clinical Services and oversees 12 programs in 37 counties, one of them being the Community Assistance and Life Liaison program (CALL).

Nicole holds two Masters Degrees. One in Human Behavior and a dual degree in Mental Health and Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of South Florida. She is Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the state of Florida and is also a Certified Addictions Professional. Ms. Guincho is a CARF surveyor and travels all over the United States and Canada completing surveys throughout the year. She is a part of a private practice in Trinity, Florida.

Nicole serves as a training instructor for two separate law enforcement Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training programs in adjoining Pinellas and Pasco counties. She teaches Geriatric Mental Health Issues, Signs and Symptoms of Mental Health, coordinates Scenario Based Training, and co-instructs Calm, Assess, Facilitate. In addition, she previously sat on the Pinellas National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) board and currently sits on the University Of South Florida’s Rehabilitation & Mental Health Counseling advisory board.
Raven Cruz Loaiza joined the Dayton Mediation Center team as the Mediation Response Coordinator for the newly developed Mediation Response Unit (MRU) after more than two decades of experience in senior management, community development, project management in the fields of law enforcement, children services, juvenile probation and victim services.

Before coming to the Center, Raven was the director of a rape crisis and anti-human trafficking department in the non-profit sector of victim services. Raven’s knowledge of relationship building, community development and program development paved the way to develop multiple rape crisis centers throughout Ohio. Raven also developed and managed several anti-human trafficking coalition chapters that trained hundreds of people on how to identify and report potential human trafficking situations and developed countywide protocols for response to human trafficking.

Raven has trained thousands of professionals and community members at various conferences and forums nationally, statewide and locally on topics such as human trafficking, sexual violence, interpersonal violence, trauma, trauma responsive services, crisis management, conflict resolution, community-oriented programming and much more.

Raven is a Licensed Social Worker who holds a master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Louisville as well as a Bachelor Degrees in Social Work and Criminal Justice from Wright State University. Raven is also a Registered Advocate. Raven’s passion is to raise awareness around social injustices and the inequalities of underprivileged populations in addition to reducing violence affecting all populations.
Major Neill Franklin (Ret.) is a 34-year law enforcement veteran of the Maryland State Police and Baltimore Police Department. After 23 years of dedicated service to the Maryland State Police, he was recruited in 2000 by the Commissioner of the Baltimore Police Department to reconstruct and command Baltimore’s Education and Training Section. During his time on the force, he held the position of commander for the Education and Training Division and the Bureau of Drug and Criminal Enforcement. He also instituted and oversaw the very first Domestic Violence Investigative Units for the Maryland State Police.

While serving as a narcotics agent with the Maryland State Police, Maj. Franklin was persuaded by then-mayor Kurt Schmoke's declaration that the War on Drugs was counterproductive and created excessive violence. This, followed by the tragic murder of his close friend, Corporal Ed Toatley, while making a drug buy as an undercover agent, cemented his resolve to reform failed drug war policies. He retired from policing in 2010 to lead the Law Enforcement Action Partnership as executive director.

After 10 years of leadership, Maj. Franklin retired as Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership in 2020. He serves on many boards, including Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, the Faith Based Community Council on Law Enforcement and Intelligence, the Place of Grace Church, Anne Arundel Community College Criminal Justice Advisory Board, and TurnAround Inc.