‘Giant Steps’ taken to train new Montreal police officers about Autism spectrum

“It’s all about changing the mindset of one person, and it [becomes a snowball effect],” said Marla Cable, Assistant Director of the Assistance and Training Centre at Giant Steps.

Giant Steps, a Montreal school and organization serving the Autism community continues to welcome local police officers (SPVM) to train them on how to work with and assist autistic citizens.

“Knowledge is power. Like I mean if you’re you know if they’re called out to an organization where we know it’s for autistic individuals the more knowledge they have the better they’re going to be prepared to be able to help and support individuals,” said Cable.

“We knew it was a priority based on our engagement with the community over the last 45 years. We’ve worked in the Autism community for a long time. We’ve seen lots of situations happen both with our students and also just generally in the community. We knew that there needed to be more done,” said Thomas Henderson, Interim Director General at Giant Steps.

Every week about eight recruits come in for training. The SPVM says in the next five years, it will hire over 2,000 new officers. These new police officers will be subject to multiple “Immersion” experiences to broaden their horizons, including the training at Giant Steps.

The initiative is a part of the Montreal police’s “Immersion Montreal program.”

“We talk a lot about the sensory system and autistic individuals and how that plays out and what it looks like and what they can do to help and support them. We talk a lot about also that autism we consider it sort of an invisible handicap so it doesn’t show. So we talk a lot about that sometimes their behaviours or actions or their way could be misconstrued as something else as someone who is on drugs or alcohol or is having you know a psychiatric episode or anything like that,” said Cable.

The training— an enriching and empowering experience for the recruits according to those we spoke to.

“We meet them at the end of the week and the first thing they say is wow I have gained so much experience I’ve never thought I was able to communicate with them I’ve gained some more information on autistic people,” said Lieutenant Dany Richer from the Montreal police.

“Our society is aware of Autistic individuals and what they can do to help and support it’s just going to be that much more helpful for autistic people,” said Cable.