Accelerator | Unbundle Policing: Reimagine Public Safety Challenge

Rewire 4

Team Leader

Molly Baldwin

Solution Name

Rewire 4

One-line solution summary:

Rewire4 provides police with critical tools to understand and address trauma in their personal lives and when interacting with people.

What specific problem are you solving?

Police are the first to respond to violence and have frontline interactions with individuals involved in violence. While tasked with addressing violence, police often lack the tools and skills needed to effectively engage with individuals they encounter. By applying tools such as an understanding of brain science and cognitive behavioral theory, police contacts can be transformed.

Most police training is focused on strategies and simulations related to use of force policies, de-escalation, ethical policing and the duty to intervene. The research indicates that these training programs do not reduce violent incidents.[1] Trainings like ABLE (Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement) and EPIC (Ethical Policing is Courageous) have become the national standard for teaching police peer intervention. While these trainings have value, they do not recognize the impact of trauma on police or provide officers with practical tools to rethink and change their interactions. Rewire4 is different from traditional trainings. Rewire4 helps officers understand brain science and the impact of trauma fueling these encounters, providing methods to effectively engage with the community and mitigate their own trauma.

[1] Leach, B., Ryen Gloinson E., Sutherland, A., and Whitmore, M., “Reviewing the Evidence Base for De-escalation Training: Rapid Evidence Assessment.” NHS Improvement, 2019. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3148.html

Pitch your solution.

Rewire4 uniquely provides officers with actual methods to slow down and de-escalate that they can use both in their personal lives and when responding to people and incidents. It provides four cognitive behavioral theory-based skills that officers can use daily along with an understanding of:

How brain science and trauma determine an individual’s actions and reactions;
Science based reasons for flight, fight and freeze reactions and what it means to be "in the bottom brain;"
Their own reactions and triggers;
How their actions and reactions can impact outcomes of encounters; and,
Practical tools they can use to communicate.

We will also build an IT component to increase access to training, materials and practice. This includes development of a Learning Management System (LMS), creation of an automated text component and ultimately an App.

Broad adoption of this solution would improve police-citizen interactions, reduce unnecessary uses of force and improve officer wellness.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

Rewire4 is in the pilot stage with a preliminary business model.

Roca, in partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital, developed Rewire – CBT Skills for Living, a flexible, trauma-informed approach to cognitive behavioral theory (CBT) skill building, to train frontline staff to deliver CBT in the community.

Roca has trained more than 1,000 young people and staff in Rewire over the past few years. Additionally, since Spring 2020, we have trained 265 individuals from criminal justice agencies and non-profits including 79 police officers and sheriff. That extensive experience has helped us design Rewire4 to meet the unique needs of police.

Pilots to train 50 police at four departments between November 2021 and February 2022 have started. Feedback will be used to inform a second pilot phase training another 150 officers from March – June 2022. We expect formal program launch in July 2022, followed immediately by development of our IT applications.