DPS Diversity Awareness
Development Initiative
The Office of Institutional Diversity and the Public Safety Special Services Bureau worked collaboratively to initiate a model of diversity awareness development for the department in 2004.
The plan reinforces the philosophy that working effectively with communities requires deep and meaningful understanding of the beliefs and value systems held by its members. As communities become more diverse, the range of experiences, histories and cultures and therefore knowing systems represented among its members is greatly increased. This situation poses a challenge for anyone whose work in the community requires that they effectively serve all of its members. These individuals must possess knowledge and understanding of the perspectives, outlooks and experiences of the groups represented. In other words, job success in diverse environments requires multi-cultural competence. The work performed by officers in the Department of Public Safety at Brown University requires this type of skill.
Acquiring the ability to function fluently in multicultural settings is an ongoing developmental process. The Department of Public Safety has instituted a plan that consists of three types of ongoing activities designed to provide the types of opportunities needed to broaden and expand one's cultural repertoire. These activities include periodic training sessions, ongoing seminars and round tables, and community outreach events. Together the three aspects of the diversity development plan will work to increase the officers' skill and knowledge around diversity related issues and as such move them towards greater multi-cultural competence.
TRAINING SESSIONS
The inservice training sessions are mandatory and focus on essential information and skills needed for daily success working in diverse communities. These training sessions are intensive and vary from half-day to full day sessions. Officers receive up to eight hours of inservice training annually.
Facilitators we have utilized have included professional social service and community justice leaders, criminal justice administrators from various institutions, and professional consultants with a speciality in cross-cultural communication and competency. We have also invited Brown administrators and staff that hold a great deal of knowledge and expertise on topics involving race, culture, and ethnicity.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
The community outreach events provide the officers with opportunities to become more personally acquainted with the diverse array of members in this community. It is well known that breaking barriers across diversity characteristics and greater cross-cultural communication are best achieved through cross-cultural contact. The events will range from social gatherings with various student and cultural groups to opportunities for the officers and these groups to collaborate on different types of community outreach like food drives or parties for children from the surrounding communities. The officers will be required to involve themselves in at-least two of these activities per year.
The plan assumes that development is ongoing and so some form of these two aspects will be required for every officer each year. It also assumes that individuals develop at their own pace and thus will provide for that variation in the types of training and seminars/roundtables provided for the officers to choose from. Officers will also acquire a great deal of knowledge by remaining proactive with community policing efforts and engaging with community members on a day to day basis while on patrol.
In 2004, the department offered its officers a 16-hour training that served as a foundational base focusing on the phenomena of racial profiling because it provided a unique opening to the multitude of cultural issues inherent to policing in diverse communities. Subsequent training has focused on cross-cultural communication and sensitivity in law enforcement.
For more information, please call 863-2542.