About
This documentary details the development and implementation of HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Team), a new public safety response program in Durham, NC that connects "neighbors” to the right care — starting from the point at which someone calls 911 to the warm handoff to those who help meet the needs of neighbors in crisis.
Durham Community
Safety Department
HEART is a program under the Durham Community Safety Department that works to enhance public safety through community-centered approaches to prevention and intervention as alternates to the criminal legal system.
The Department has three primary functions: continuing to develop and expand new response models for 911 calls for service, collaborating with community members to identify additional approaches to public safety, and managing and evaluating existing contracts and external partnerships intended to advance public safety.
RTI International
RTI International is an independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition. Our vision is to address the world's most critical problems with science-based solutions in pursuit of a better future.
Transformative Research Unit for Equity (TRUE)
RTI’s Transformative Research Unit for Equity (TRUE) was created to transform traditional research practices and mindsets to reimagine and create systems that advance equity and social justice. TRUE’S Narrative Research and Community Engagement Lab (Narrative Lab) is working in collaboration with communities and organizations to co-create new narratives and advance the evidence base of structural solutions that drive systems-level change. Informed by research and in partnership with community, we develop, curate, disseminate, and evaluate multi-platform stories. We amplify narratives that offer insight to communities, policymakers, and practitioners working to make a more just world for those experiencing injustices.
HEART: Serving Our Neighbors in Crisis highlights what is possible when there is synergistic collaboration between researchers, political leadership, first responders, mental health clinicians and community. By documenting HEART’s first six months of implementation, we have created a visual roadmap that can be utilized by other cities and towns who want to improve or create their own public safety alternative response programs.
Dilsey M Davis, MPH
Producer/Director
Dilsey leads the Narrative Research and Community Engagement Lab in the Transformative Research Unit for Equity (TRUE) at RTI International. She has 25 years of experience as a media professional and educator producing short- and long-form projects, multimedia marketing campaigns, and national and international communication initiatives that focus on health, financial education, equity, and social justice. Recently she led the creative development of stories for the CDC’s Your Diabetes Compass website, a tool for Black women with type 2 diabetes. She also concepted and produced a video training tool on understanding social determinants of health for staff at the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).
Dilsey has produced and directed four documentary shorts for ITVS/Independent Lens's Stories for Social Justice on rural jails in North Carolina and Tennessee which included the films Zoo Crew and Sheriff Paula Dance: Bringing Change to Pitt County. The East Tennessee based short, Daughters of Addiction was broadcast on PBS in November 2020. Her biographical film Now Let Us Sing was broadcast on PBS in 2021 and featured in many film festivals including Cucalorus and DOC NYC. Her most recent documentary, Rissi Palmer: Still Here premiered on the American Masters “In the Making” series and is currently available on the PBS app.
HEART Documentary Crew
- Producer/Director: Hannah Hamza
- Editor: Jordan Baese
- Director of Photography: Adam Booher
- Original Music Composed by: Dan Schneider
- Camera Operators: Jafar Fallahi, John Laww
- Production Coordinator: Brittany Wood
- Assistant Editor: Markeith Gentry
- Narrative Researcher: Yewande Addie
- Graphic Designer: Shari Lambert
- Advisor: Brian Aagaard
- Editorial Advisors: The Durham Community Safety Department Staff
HEART: Serving Our Neighbors in Crisis was produced by the Transformative Research Unit for Equity’s Narrative Research and Community Engagement Lab at RTI International in Collaboration with the City of Durham. This film was made possible with support from Arnold Ventures.
