All Stars Project INC.

Operation Conversation: Cops and Kids is a program of the All Stars Project designed to foster positive interactions between the police and inner-city youth.  It consists of a series of workshops that use performance, improvisational games and conversation to help teenagers and police officers to develop and improve their relationship.

The program was initiated in late 2006 by Dr. Lenora B. Fulani, co-founder of the All Stars Project, in the wake of the police shooting of Sean Bell in Queens. In the first five years, a total of 1,275 cops and kids participated in 50 pilot workshops, including police officers from the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and All Stars youth leaders from Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Jamaica, Harlem, and Washington Heights.

As of October 2011, the NYPD officially incorporated Operation Conversation: Cop and  Kids into its training of its police officers.

 

 

An outline of a typical two-hour Cops and Kids workshop consists of:

 

Theatre Games- these "ice-breaker" exercises help police officers and youth interact and sharing a fun experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saying What They Came to Say- in two sentences, officers and young people say "the one thing they came to say," getting it off their chest and becoming able to move on to a new conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

Improvisational Skits- young people and officers improvise everyday scenes together, allowing them to cooperate to reach a goal.

 

 

 

 

 

Conversation- the workshop concludes with honest conversation between police officers and inner-city youth. With the benefit of the shared performance experiences, these conversations are respectful and productive.

 

 

 

 

Read a first-person report from ASP president and CEO Gabrielle L. Kurlander, who observed a recent workshop.

 

For more information
To learn more about Operation Conversation: Cops and Kids, call Senior Program Manager Lisa Linnen at 212-356-8448.

 

News

In December 2009, Dr. Lenora B. Fulani, founder of Operation Conversation: Cops and Kids, conducted a mini Cops and Kids workshop with five inner-city youth and four police officers from the NYPD at the All Stars Project's annual corporate luncheon for an audience of 350 guests.

In June of 2008, the All Stars Project sponsored an academic conference entitled, "The Police and Our Young People: What is their Relationship?" The conference was attended by law enforcement officials, including police chiefs from the NYPD, educators and academics. Dr. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy, was one of the keynote speakers.