February 12, 2025

Kennett Square Police Chief William Holdsworth thinks it’s a great idea. He’s talking about “Handle with Care,” an initiative that arose through the Crimewatch website that the borough department embraced last fall.

The Handle with Care Registry is a way for residents to let police and other first responders be aware that a family member might need special assistance in case of emergency or some other contact with police.

“In my opinion, it’s a great initiative,” Holdsworth said in a recent interview. “It’s a great way to bring information forward for direct knowledge of people that have some type of special need. It could be somebody that is immobile, is in a wheelchair. It could be somebody has a family member with autism.”

He said some people need a different type of approach from police, a more careful approach than others, or even a swifter approach.

Holdsworth explained that once his department has the information, it’s put into the records system and then automatically forwarded to the county so that should a call, such as a fire call, come in, police and fire responders will know in advance that there’s someone who needs special assistance.

“[The Handle with Care Registry] will emphasize the importance of getting there, and finding out what’s going on. Is it just a false alarm or is it truly a fire? If there’s a fire, there’s somebody there that needs to be evacuated.”

He said the program should have a good impact on residents because there are more people than the department is aware of who have some type of special need.

In another example, he spoke of people with autism, and how each one of them is different, that there’s no single approach because of the broad nature of the autism spectrum.

“So many different people have different needs when it comes to autism, depending on where on the spectrum they fall, how they respond to verbal communication, how they respond to flashing lights, how they respond to anything.”

Holdsworth acknowledged that there have been incidents in other parts of the country in which an interaction between law enforcement and someone with. an emotional or some other need falls apart and the person was injured or killed by a police officer simply because of the inability to understand what’s going on.

“Things can deteriorate fast,” he said, “and I know from real-world life experiences as a police officer how quickly things can go wrong. So, the more that we have information-wise to base our responses on, the better we all are, the better we can serve our community,” he said. “It helps us with situational awareness.”

Borough officers go through various training programs on an annual basis, but they also go through some other specific training such as autism awareness.

“All the officers are trained on de-escalation tactics and techniques, but the more information they have available to them, the better they can use them.”

Holdsworth said the important thing to know is that the program is there, and he wants people in the borough to sign up for it if they or a member of their household has special needs. Information is confidential, he added, but is kept within the emergency management system.

Borough residents can register for Handle with Care on the Kennett Police Department’s website kennettsquarepd.org. Registering is voluntary. Currently, the program is only for municipalities that have their own police departments, Holdsworth added.

The Kennett Square Police Department also encourages residents to submit information to Smart911. Smart 911 is a free service that allows individuals and families to create a safety profile online, providing key information to Chester County’s 9-1-1 Center. Safety profiles can be created at www.smart911.com.

Smart 9-1-1 is based on a person’s phone number while Handle with Care is based on the person’s address.