In the spirit of collaboration, Summit DD recently hosted a Home Visit Safety Training for our Early Intervention team as well as community partners from AMHA, Catholic Charities, Akron Children’s Hospital, United Way of Summit & Medina, Greenleaf Family Center, and Child Guidance and Family Solutions.

“We had officer Lauri Natko from the Akron Police Department train us on identifying potential safety hazards in the home environment (such as drugs, weapons, and signs of abuse), some de-escalation techniques (such as active listening and communicating effectively with individuals who may be angry, frustrated, or under distress), some basic self-defense techniques, and some emergency procedures (such as having a check-in, check-out process, washing your hands before and after the visit, and considering a home visit safety check list). Officer Natko is an excellent presenter who is easy to listen to. She made a serious training fun, practical, and extremely useful for the work that we do,” shared Kathy Supple, Summit DD’s Assistant Director of Early Intervention.

The training day concluded with a Child Abuse and Neglect presentation by Kennedy Rondini from Summit County Children’s Services and a FLIP IT: Overcoming Challenging Behaviors Training by Laura Franczak and Mallory Zaun, from Child Guidance Family Solutions.

Thank you to all our community partners for making this essential training a success!