b'Many, if not all, missions face the same chal- One of many responsibilities lenges to safetyincreasing substance abuse,I n the first approach, KARM used a specific growing mental health issues, violence andradio call, a Code Green, to summon help threats of violence to their clientsall resultingwhenever there was a security issue. All in serious questions about how best to addressfrontline staff and supervisors were expected to them. We all want our guests, volunteers, anddrop whatever they were doing and immediately staff to feel safe; we want to ensure that peoplesrespond. While there were a few staff members belongings are secure; we want to reduce thewho had previous security experience, most were number of incidents of violence and overdosesgiven little to no training as to what to do when a on our property; and we want to provide a peace- Code Green was called. The result was that most ful atmosphere. However, there is a naturalminor altercations quickly escalated to physical tension between keeping a facility secure andviolence and guests often had to be physically maintaining a welcoming environment. restrained. As you can imagine, this approach led Ive found that most missions fall into one ofto inconsistent responses, increased trauma for three categories in the way they address security:guestsboth those involved in the incident as They assign it as part of a certain staff positionwell as those observingand increased liability (e.g., frontline staff deal with fights), they hirefor KARM as an organization.outside contractors (security guards), and very occasionally they hire dedicated staff for the role.Outside contractors KARM has tried all three approaches, and Id likeW hen KARM realized this approach to share what we have learned from each method. was detrimental to the well-being of guests, staff members, and the organ-ization, they moved toward the second approach and hired an outside contractor. Armed security guards did provide a limited liability buffer, but KARM had little control over the quality of the guards and the training they received. Some of the guard companies neglected to train their guards well. As a result, their responses to incidents were worse than the old method of random staff mem-bers responding. Security guards were witnessed yelling at guests, invading personal space, and initiating physical contact. Changing guard companies fixed some of these issues but created significant budgetary problems.More than these procedural and behavioral issues, KARM struggled with the fact that no matter what guard company was used, the security guards could not be guaranteed to share the values of our organization. This inevitably created some 28 WWW.CITYGATENETWORK.ORG JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025'