1 • See Opinion/Forum pages on A4 & A5
TV personality, Talitha Vickers, releases
first book
BY TIMOTHY RAMSEY
THE CHRONICLE
Talitha Vickers has
blessed the Triad commu
nity with her on-air work
and community service for
years. After years of effort
and planning, Vickers now
has become an author by
releasing her first book,
“Why My Hero Had to
Go.”
The book was inspired
by the relationship be
tween her brother, who is
in the armed forces, and
her nephew. She had want
ed to find a way to shed
some light on the difficul
ties her brother and neph
ew had to deal with when
her brother was deployed
overseas.
“Every time that my
brother had to leave for
deployment, no matter the
age of my nephew, it was
very difficult,” said Vick
ers. “Whether he was two
years old and tugging at
my brother’s leg, or he
was five years old and my
brother would try to sit him
down and explain where
he was going and what he
was doing, and even up to
his teenage years, it was
just a constant struggle for
a child to understand why
his dad was leaving again.
“During those deploy
ments, we were always
there, and we would al
ways try to explain it to
my nephew, but he could
never grasp it. I drew from
all of that and I said I need
to make something, even if
it’s a coloring book, so he
could understand his dad
was doing something real
ly important and special.”
Following several de
ployments by her broth
er, Vickers noticed her
nephew becoming more
withdrawn when that typi
cally wasn’t his personal
ity. She found out kids at
her nephew’s school were
giving him a hard time by
saying “your dad doesn’t
love you” and “your dad
never shows up to football
games.
“That just crushed me,
because we had worked
so hard to find ways they
could stay connected, like
the book said, through the
stars and looking at the
same moon even though
they were hundreds of
miles apart,” she said about
her feelings. “That really
pushed me even further
in writing the book, not
only for military families
to understand, but also for
their peers to understand,
that just because there is a
different family dynamic
from your own, doesn’t
mean that child isn’t loved.
“I drew from my neph
ew and what I physically
saw from my brother. My
nephew would share with
me the things I didn’t see
when he was at school
and things kids would say
Submitted photo
TV news anchor, Talitha Vickers, recently released her first book entitled ‘Why My
Hero Had to Go. ’
to him and I said I had to
include that in the book so
kids could also understand
the life of service men and
women.”
According to Vickers,
the themes of the book
center on love, inclusion,
and kindness, “ft really
shows how family can stay
connected through their
daily routines and their en
vironment,” she said about
the book. “So, it’s showing
through daily routines how
kids can stay connected
to their loved ones deal
ing with deployment, but
also really drive home the
message and show you can
stay connected with any
loved one.
“I have yet to meet a
child that can grasp the
word deployment and what
it means. So, I wanted to
break it down and chop it
in little pieces so it’s bite-
sized for children to un
derstand what it is they’re
doing and really pull back
that curtain through the il
lustration from Keith Hob
good to be able to have the
lightbulb go off for chil
dren.”
This is Vickers first
time as an author of a
book, and she is very hap
py to have the opportunity
to tell this story to kids.
“I am overwhelmed,
and this is something that
has always been in my
heart,” she said about be
ing a first-time author.
“I’ve always loved work
ing with children and I am
a Sunday School teacher.
I just love working with
children and seeing the
magic in their eyes through
books, so to be able to
write my own and share
that with my children and
read the book to the twins
is so magical.”
From start to finish, the
book took eight years for
Vickers to complete. With
work, family and commu
nity involvement, Vickers
had little time to write, find
the perfect illustrator, or a
publisher.
“When you sit down
and think, okay I am go
ing to write a book, in
my mind I was thinking
I could bang this out in a
couple months or a year
because I know this story’
and it’s a true story and I
know the themes I want
in there, but it was eight
years,” she said. “Eight
years of stop and go, eight
years of moving to differ
ent states for my job and I
am so glad that it took that
See Book on A2
W-S considering alternative response models for law enforcement
BY TEVIN STINSON
THE CHRONICLE
The City of Winston-
Salem is considering
adopting an alternative
response model to address
911 calls that involve indi
viduals dealing with men
tal health issues.
Talks about police
funding and procedures
have been discussed in
cities across the country
since last summer, follow
ing the murder of George
Floyd while being de
tained by police officers
in Minneapolis. Locally,
several organizations, in
cluding the Forsyth Coun
ty Police Accountability
and Reallocation Coali
tion (FCPARC), have been
in
formed and have called for
the city council to defund
the Winston-Salem Police
Department (WSPD) and
implement response meth
ods that don’t involve law
enforcement.
In response to the calls
for change, on Monday,
Feb. 8, the Public Safety
Committee listened to a
presentation that outlined
two alternative response
models. Currently the
WSPD uses the “law en
forcement only” response
model. Typically the offi
cers that respond to mental
health calls have had crisis
intervention training.
One of the alterna
tive models calls for a
co-response, where both
police and a mental health
professional respond to
calls. The other model,
which is referred to as the
CAHOOTS (Crisis Assis
tance Helping Out On The
Streets) model, calls for
mental health profession
als to respond alone, but
they can still call on law
enforcement as needed.
Research provided on
the CAHOOTS model
which was first adopted
in Eugene, Ore. in 1989,
shows that in 2019, be
tween 5% and 8% of all
calls were diverted and
the department has saved
www.wschronicle.com
an estimated $8.5 million.
“The program has been so
successful that the police
department believes there
are people who call just to
get a service that you oth
erwise wouldn’t call 911
for,” said Scott Tesh, di
rector of Winston-Salem’s
Office of Performance and
Accountability.
In recent years sev
eral other cities across the
country have transitioned
to the Co-Response or
CAHOOTS model, in
cluding Greensboro, Char
lotte, and Raleigh. Several
cities have also adopted
“Civilian Response” op
portunities that diverts
“non-urgent” calls that
may not need law enforce
ment. “Oakland, Calif.,
City Council was looking
at ways they could do this
and most recently there
was an article in Govern
ing Magazine where this
came up in the city of
Charlotte,” Tesh said.
“Non-urgent call types
being noise complaints,
abandoned cars, property
damage. Some of those
minor infractions where
they might be looking at
ways to not send law en
forcement to respond to
those either.”
To determine the
need for an alternative re
sponse model, the city has
partnered with RTI Inter
national, a non-profit re
search entity, and they are
in the process of doing an
analysis of all 911 calls.
The goal of the analysis
is to better understand the
community’s needs, iden
tify the best alternative
response strategy for the
city, and support imple
mentation of an alterna
tive strategy. According to
representatives from RTI,
the analysis will be broken
down into four different
phases and will take about
18 months to complete.
Following the presen
tation by Tesh and others,
Selene Johnson, who is a
certified behavior analyst,
shared her thoughts on the
alternative models.
Jolmson said in the
nearly 30 years that she
has worked in the field, she
has never needed a weap
on to defend herself and
only had to call law en
forcement once, and even
then it was only because
she thought a young man
was going to run into the
street. Johnson said esti
mates show at least 25% of
all fatal law enforcement
encounters involve people
with mental illness. She
said oftentimes the loss of
life could’ve been avoided.
“In my 28 years of experi
ence working in the field
of intellectual and devel
opmental disabilities and
mental health, I have never
carried or needed a weap
on, a taser, pepper spray
or handcuffs despite the
fact I have supported hun
dreds of people, including
young adults in behavioral
crisis,” Johnson continued.
“Why are people with
mental illness and disabili
ties at an increased risk
for these fatal encounters?
Well, when a police offi
cer interacts with an indi
vidual, she or he expects
compliance and coopera
tion; however, a person
with a mental disability
may not be able to comply.
This is often mistaken as a
malicious choice to resist,
when in fact, the person
may lack the understand
ing or even the physical
control.”
Johnson, who is white,
said just the presence of
law enforcement can fur
ther exacerbate a situation,
especially for Black and
brown people. She said,
“Professionals who are ful
ly trained in mental health
crises have been shown to
have the opposite effect by
calming, de-escalating and
re-directing.”