Senator Duff Leads Effort to Unlock Funding for Critical Police Mental Health Training

SB 298 Provides Enacting Language to Release $850,000 for Police Training on Interactions with People with Mental Illness and Disabilities

HARTFORD — Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) today highlighted a key provision in Senate Bill 298, passed last week, that provides enacting language to release funding for new police training on interactions with people who have mental illness or physical disabilities.

The budget passed last year included $850,000 in FY 2026 and $2.05 million in FY 2027 to support the development of this training, but without the enacting language, the money couldn’t be spent. SB 298 fixes that. The Police Officers Standards and Training Council will now develop new curricula on crisis intervention and de-escalation, in collaboration with people on the autism spectrum, advocacy organizations, university experts, and healthcare professionals.

“Every day, police officers respond to people in mental health crises, and the outcomes of those encounters depend on training,” said Senator Duff. “When officers don’t recognize the behaviors associated with autism or mental illness, a situation that didn’t have to escalate does. This training saves lives. We funded it last year, and now we’re making sure the money actually gets spent. I would like to thank Norwalk resident Jeff Spahr and Norwalk Police Chief James Walsh for their help and support from the very beginning of this process.”

“The training provisions of this Bill represent a step in the right direction to provide the brave officers on the street with the tools they need to address an ever-increasing variety of situations that they are called upon to handle,” said Jeff Spahr, leader of Families for Autism Awareness Acceptance Information and Recognition. “This legislation is aimed at developing a training curriculum for police officers regarding their interactions with individuals with physical disabilities or cognitive impairments as well as mental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder. These areas of training shall include, at a minimum, guidance on the nature of a variety of mental illnesses and mental or physical disability, how to identify persons who may be challenged by these conditions, and, most importantly, strategies and techniques for handling incidents involving members of these populations, including crisis intervention strategies and de-escalation techniques. It is also significant to note that the curriculum that is to be delivered is to be developed with the input of those individuals that this is designed to assist, institutions of higher education, health care professionals and advocacy organizations. Accordingly, this instruction shall be comprehensive and designed to address issues seen from both sides of any such interaction.”

Contact: Hugh McQuaid | Hugh.McQuaid@cga.ct.gov