The New Westminster Police Department still has an officer devoted to working with children and youth at risk, even while it builds a new relationship with the New West school district.
In a report to the New Westminster police board, Insp. Diana McDaniel gave an overview of the NWPD’s school liaison program. In April, the board of education voted to discontinue the child and youth liaison officer program in schools and directed its staff to collaborate with the police department on the redesign of their relationship.
“The NWPD will continue to be committed to supporting local youth in our community in any way that we can,” McDaniel told the police board on June 15. “We look forward to building a new relationship with the school board and remain open to new ways that we can build these relationships and provide the needed services that our community requests.”
McDaniel said the school liaison program in New Westminster dates back to the 1970s, when it was called PITS – Police Officers in the Schools – but it has evolved through the years. What started out as a volunteer position, where police officers visited schools to establish connections with youth and teachers, eventually evolved into a program that included three dedicated positions.
“The main theme of police in the schools was to promote a positive relationship between police and students,” she said. “This relationship-building always took precedence over enforcement. Some of the programs that were included were safety-related topics, prevention and other age-appropriate presentations.”
McDaniel noted that several recommendations came out of an academic review of the program that was completed by Simon Fraser University in 2015.
“One of them was creating an additional position – youth-at-risk officer. This third position was created to provide education and develop ongoing collaborative relationships with the alternate and independent schools in New West,” she explained. “The name of the program also changed over the years to what it was now called, the Child and Youth Resource Unit.”
In response to the school board’s decision to cancel the school liaison program, the two officers who had been assigned to work in schools as school liaison officers have been redeployed to other roles.
McDaniel said the school board has stated it wants to collaborate with the NWPD to redesign the relationship as it pertains to safety, critical incidents, lockdowns and such.
“We are going to await communication from the board of education as to how they want our relationship to continue and how that will look moving forward,” she said. “As they make requests to us, we will review them; they will be triaged in order of priority and an assessment completed based on the current resources that we have available.”
McDaniel said the youth-at-risk officer position will continue to work in the community, supporting independent and private schools in New West. That role is currently filled by Const. John MacDonald.
“I know John has had a lot of success in working with the schools, and they are very, very excited to work with the police. So that relationship is going to continue, and it’s a very positive one,” she said. “I think we can just build and expand as we move forward.”
Given the recent changes to the Child and Youth Resource Unit, Chief Const. Dave Jansen said the NWPD will continue to work on the scope of the youth-at-risk officer position and determine if refinements are needed to the role.
An ever-changing program
A report to the police board states the NWPD had a continual presence in New West schools from the mid-1970s to June 2020, but the nature of that relationship varied through the years in response to safety and crime prevention trends of the times.
In the early years, officers, working “off the side of their desk,” would visit schools to make presentations and show films to classes on topics such as safety, crime prevention and the negative effects of drug and alcohol use.
According to NWPD, the school board asked the police department in 1994 to assign a full-time police officer to New Westminster Secondary School, and the NWPD obliged and fully funded the position. In 2009, the board requested a dedicated school liaison officer (SLO) for the elementary and middle schools, and the NWPD created a second SLO position in response to that request.
Through the years, topics covered by SLOs have ranged from stranger danger, bullying, abuse prevention and introduction to 911 for elementary students to dating violence, internet safety, drinking and driving, gang recruitment and sexual exploitation of children for older students.
School liaison officers have worked with the school district to implement a variety of programs, including the Student Police Academy, Parents Night Out information sessions, Cooking with Cops, Rock Solid (an anti-violence program) and End Gang Life presentations.
As part of a 2015 review of the program, school principals indicated it would be “valued” for schools to see more of the school liaison officers.
In response to that review, the NWPD created a new youth-at-risk officer position. The review found that about 25% of the files the officers were involved in related to youth who were deemed to be at-risk because of factors such as homelessness, unstable or poor living conditions, neglect, poor performance at school, and mental health issues in the home.
“After the murder of George Floyd last year, there were many questions related to discussions about use of force by law enforcement in the U.S. and in Canada,” McDaniel said. “This led to many discussions about defunding the police, and in New Westminster how that affected us was that the board of education expressed their concerns about having police officers in the schools.”
McDaniel said the school board’s decision to end the school liaison program was based on concerns that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and persons of colour) students and marginalized students felt uncomfortable with the police presence in the schools.
“They were solely focused on that and wanting to make sure that all students felt comfortable,” she said. “They felt that some, maybe with lesser voices, just weren’t comfortable with police in general being there, not that the police were necessarily doing anything in a negative way, but just by their mere presence was creating an uncomfortable environment.”
Mayor Jonathan Cote, chair of the police board, said the school district and the school board have a responsibility to the education system.
“I think we need to respect their jurisdiction to do what they feel is right for their schools to create the learning environment they are looking for there,” he said. “It sounds like there is still really good dialogue about how the interaction with police and schools will continue in a new format. Obviously I think the board would be interested to see as that evolves and becomes a little bit more formalized.”
Cote said one of the thrusts of the 2015 study conducted by representatives from Simon Fraser University’s School of Criminology suggested that rather than broad liaison programs it may be beneficial, from a community safety and youth protection point of view, to target certain areas, such as the at-risk and vulnerable youth population.
Jansen said the police department will report back to the board in the fall with an update on what’s developed in terms of the changes to the program and what’s being considered for 2022.
Follow Theresa McManus on Twitter @TheresaMcManus
Email [email protected]
