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Since 1997, the academy from Oakland Police Department has been a participant of the Tools for Tolerance® for Law Enforcement program. Aja Lascelles, a program coordinator with Tools for Tolerance®, spoke to Officer Norm Del Rosario to find out what brings their academy recruits back to the Museum of Tolerance, year after year.
Oakland Police Department seeks to provide the best training and programs possible to its recruits; in fact, this training often goes “above and beyond” what is mandated. The department not only provides 1089 hours of cultural diversity training to its recruits (which is 425 hours more than what is mandated by P.O.S.T.), but their recruits also take part in a weekly ethics training in which they examine current events and use these to generate group discussions. The recruits also participate in a “Youth Project”, which involves panels and group discussions with juvenile groups. Officer Del Rosario shared that the intent of any chief at Oakland PD has been to impress upon the recruits the importance of being familiar with their community.
According to Officer Del Rosario, the academy utilizes what he called “subject matter experts” as often as possible, and this is what make the Tools for Tolerance® program such a great fit for the academy. He described the Tools for Tolerance® program as a “subject matter expert” when it comes to cultural diversity training. The adult-based delivery of the program reflects the preferred mode of training that Oakland’s police department is working to adopt and implement. The group interactions and activities elicit opinions and life experiences from the recruits. He said that the program not only raises the awareness of the recruits to examples of tolerance and intolerance, but also encourages them to be actively involved in turning that awareness into action – action that they can use in the field. Officer Del Rosario asserts that for the recruits, there is an immediate connection made between the Tools For Tolerance® diversity training and their imminent role as law enforcement professionals. Recruits understand that as a part of their jobs they will have to provide services to their community; who makes up that community and who they interact with is out of their control, but how they interact is within their control.
According to Officer Del Rosario, the philosophies and tactics of training that are shared here at Tools for Tolerance® reinforces the types of the training and skills that are imparted to their recruits back at the department. And because of that, these recruits will keep coming back for more!
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