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Q&A
Role of school safety agents in youth programs and community engagement
2:23:09
ยท
120 sec
Council Member Rita C. Joseph questions the role of school safety agents in youth programs and community engagement. Assistant Commissioner Alden Foster explains the importance of school safety agents in building relationships with young people and supporting various NYPD initiatives.
- School safety agents work closely with community affairs officers in all 78 precincts
- NYPD emphasizes building trust and relationships between school safety agents, police officers, and young people
- Summer youth employment opportunities place young people in various NYPD units, exposing them to different career paths within the department
Rita C. Joseph
2:23:09
And what role does school safety agent play in this?
2:23:12
I would like to know.
Alden Foster
2:23:13
School safety is a big component of that.
2:23:15
So, Community Affairs Bureau, we oversee school safety division.
2:23:18
The school safety agents, they no one knows our kids better than the school safety agents, and my community affairs officers and all 78 persons, they work very closely with school safety and that partnership has has been phenomenal as far as finding different programming and building those relationships.
2:23:37
When we talk about trust, we want our school safety agents, our police officers to have those relationships with those young people, and the best way to do that is sometimes working with Keith Howard and DYCD, but also creating some of the programs because the men and women of this department has a lot of expertise, and that summer youth employment opportunity that we do with DYCD is so important because young people are placed in all of the different areas of the police department from our aviation unit, harbor, electricians.
2:24:08
We have people on this job employed in the police department that has a number of expertise that we're able to put those young people with.
2:24:16
So it's not all about joining the police department, we we will love that for for them to take the test and come on a job, but it's about young people staying out of trouble and and learning more about the human side of what we do every day.
Rita C. Joseph
2:24:28
You gotta trust the messenger.
2:24:31
So what role does school does that play any role in discipline?
2:24:34
Do you follow that?
2:24:35
Do you track that the interaction with you guys in school discipline and school safety and all of that?
Alden Foster
2:24:40
And, some of our programs we do, so some of our programs it's it's a constant the same officers that are working with the same students.
2:24:48
With our neighborhood coordination program, we have a location up in Harlem, Brooklyn, and Far Rockaway.
2:24:55
Those offices are in the same schools in those programs mentoring with the DOE.
2:25:00
That's a close partnership, so the offices do follow-up if the young people are actually doing better or having issues in school.
Rita C. Joseph
2:25:09
Do you capture that data to see what's working and what's not working?