‘The Law and Your Community’ program offers summer session

The Chicago Metropolitan Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), in partnership with the Chicago Police Department, will expand a law literacy and community building law enforcement interaction program for urban youth with special summer sessions through the funding support of the Chicago Police Foundation.

A nationally recognized interactive training program, “The Law and Your Community” is a 12-week curriculum designed to help educate students and young adults on the criminal justice system, criminal laws, law enforcement and policing, and the proper way to interact safely with police officers during an encounter. Chicago police officers who are trained to facilitate The Law and Your Community sessions use various teaching methods, such as role reversal skits, interactive scenarios, videos, slide shows and vignettes designed to encourage discussion among the students and law enforcement officers.

NOBLE completed The Law and Your Community sessions at 15 Chicago high schools and middle schools during the 2016-2017 school year, and will be offering an 8-session summer mentoring program at the DuSable Museum of African American History from July 5th – August 23rd. The new pilot initiative, “The Law and Your Community Global Ambassador Summer Mentoring Program,” is designed to expound on themes of personal development such as decision-making, leadership, self-esteem and self-awareness, communication, and goal-setting, which the students and facilitators wanted to explore during the in-school The Law and Your Community sessions.

“We’re excited to be able to offer this special summer session at

DuSable Museum,” said Eugene Williams, retired Chief of the Chicago Police Department and current President of the Chicago Metropolitan Chapter of NOBLE.

In addition, during each session representatives of the Chicago Consular Corps will visit with the students to guide them through an exploration of their country and the history of black and brown civilizations as a whole. The following consulates have been invited to participate: Nepal, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, South Africa, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Comoros. The goal of this mentoring program is to increase the students’ sense of self by understanding their global interconnectivity and history and build their self-worth and self-understanding of who they are in their local community.

“The Chicago Police Foundation believes that this is an effective program for helping to open dialogue and interaction between the Chicago Police Department and community members,” said John C. Robak, Chair of the Chicago Police Foundation. “And, we’re pleased to financially support the expansion of The Law and Your Community Global Ambassador Summer Mentoring Program to provide a positive learning activity and experience for students when they are out of school during the summer months.”

In addition to supporting the DuSable Museum program for students this summer, the Chicago Police Foundation is also funding one-day workshop/presentation sessions of The Law and Your Community that will be open to all ages at various churches and civic organizations in the city, in response to numerous requests received by NOBLE for the program.

 

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