(♪♪)
I often say, well, what would you do if this is someone you love?
Who do you want me to send?
(door opens)
(♪♪)
If we love someone, we don't give up on them.
You air on the side of compassion and help.
(♪♪)
I am Amy Barden.
I am Chief of Seattle's third Public Safety department, which is called CARE.
That stands for Community Assisted Response and Engagement.
I have Seattle 911.
And then we've set up new behavioral health
first responders called CARE Crisis Responders.
It's been fascinating to understand the complexity of the human experience,
and that there's never a single causal factor
or a single solution when it comes to human suffering.
We're all different.
We all need help and interventions at different times.
My folks moved to Vancouver, Washington, and that's where I grew up.
(♪♪)
Middle child, big family. Very inquisitive.
The family business was heavy construction,
and so I've joked that I have a strong bias toward action, toward making things
and doing things and seeing evidence of productive behavior.
I did get into grad school in Boston, put that aside
and decided, okay, I'm going to be a mama first.
I always had a fit in a program while I was raising kids,
and then finally culminated that I kind of started
a couple of years ago at Vanderbilt, and that's where I got my terminal degree.
Those four kids grew up, so when they came back west, I came back west.
Initially, I was talking to the city about the Department of Neighborhoods job,
and the mayor and I spoke in that context.
He said, Amy, I like you so much, but you don't seem really “neighborhoody”.
And I was like, I'm neighborhoody, I'm neighborhoody!
I just, I dress like a banker.
Deputy mayor called me and said, what do you really like?
And I said, I like complex problems.
I got married this summer, the same week as I got sworn in.
(applause)
I had been preparing my confirmation remarks and the wedding
toast the same morning, and my husband said, “...don't mix up those speeches, Amy!”
I think my job is to
knock out barriers to entry for folks on the first lines, who are the heroes.
And they are my bosses, the first responders.
And I include certainly our dispatchers in that.
The day that I don't feel it the way that I do, I'll be rendered ineffective.
I do take it very personally.
(♪♪)