The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Police youth outreach pays off
Another viewpoint is a column The News-Herald makes available so all sides of an issue may be aired. Tom Wetzel is chief of police in Richmond Heights. Denise DeBiase is a lieutenant there.
There is a classic Norman Rockwell painting called The Runaway which has a cop sitting next a little boy about 10 years of age at the counter of an old-style ’50s diner. Next to the boy is a bundle on a stick which is commonly associated with someone who is running away from home.
The police officer and the boy are looking at each with the boy having an innocent sheepish look while the burly cop has a caring look of genuine concern. One would suspect that the officer probably drove him home after he bought him lunch.
This beautiful artwork though exemplifies the special relationship cops and kids have always had.
We are like Guardian Angels for them as there is no more important role that police officers play today than watching over and protecting children. This protective relationship has never been more important than right now as we work to build a bridge of trust with our young customers and their families.
Youth outreach if done well can pay dividends for generations.
We have developed four exciting youth outreach programs that we hope can be templates or guides for police agencies throughout not only Ohio but the entire nation.
One program is a police student art competition where budding high school artists from our local school submit their artwork for evaluation. Officers then view all the submitted works and vote for their favorites.
The top vote getters have their work framed and displayed throughout the police department to include our roll call/report room area.
We also award prizes to the selected artists and the Sun Messenger newspaper did a story on them.
Not only is there a sense of pride for these talented students, but our officers begin and end their days having the chance to observe some beautiful artwork.
The goal is to conduct this competition on an annual basis and rotate new material each year.
Another special outreach effort is a police scholastic recognition program called “We Tip our Badge for Academic excellence.”
Every two weeks, a teacher or principal will recommend a student who has done something special in school. We then provide the student with a signed certificate, a donated gift from a local business, and then post their picture on our police Facebook page acknowledging them.
It is wonderful as we have parents, teachers, family members and friends who then post supportive comments about the child. We even had one student who had family in Vietnam visiting our page and sending messages in the Vietnamese language. How cool is that!
We also started a new program called the Teen Ambassador Club. This program, which is open to students in grades 7-12, allows members to learn more about their police department and what it is we do.
The club is designed to help provide learning opportunities for members on public speaking, public relations, networking, professional development, and building community trust along with other opportunities that many high school students do not have.
As club members develop a genuine appreciation and relationship with the officers, they can then go out and be ambassadors for the police department. These goodwill ambassadors will be able to participate in food drives, volunteer events and other community functions, and they will be able to speak on our behalf about all the good we are trying to accomplish.
One of our most exciting programs is the brainchild of one of our veteran sergeants, Todd Leisure.
This tough old Marine who used to be a Scout Master came up with Cop Scouts, which is a blend of Cub Scouts and a Police Explorer program. It is geared for boys and girls aged 9 to 12, and it teaches them life skills, what cops do, and an appreciation for nature among other things.
Cop Scouts also provides an enriching environment for kids to make friends to include us. Another neat feature of the program is that parents are involved in it.
They don’t drop their kids off but instead actually participate with them.
Sgt. Leisure is assisted by another veteran officer named Tim Casto who used to be a canine handler. his unique program is one of a kind and an excellent opportunity at community outreach.
The beauty of all these programs are the low cost.
Most of them simply involve a good attitude and some sweat equity as well as a belief in the future of our children.
Now more than ever, police agencies need to find ways to instill confidence and build bridges of trust, even if just one truss at a time.
Youth outreach has the potential to do that and can pay dividends in long lasting relationships and a renewed confidence in our nation’s police officers.