Here are some of the major responsibilities that we are currently shouldering:
- Los Angeles Police Department – we continue to be engaged in “human relations training” at the Police Academy and in the field, to be on hand at the LAPD Operations Center and elsewhere to help monitor certain troublesome events – such as demonstrations and outbreaks of violence – to participate at all of Chief Bill Bratton’s ethnic and community-wide forums, and to render assistance at meetings scheduled by Police Commission members, etc.
- Los
Angeles Fire Department – taking
advantage of the partnership that was established in 2005, and thanks
to the funding which is being provided to us by the Fire Department,
a member of our Field Team has designed and implemented “human
relations training” for the benefit of all of its personnel;
by this means, we are moving forward in our attempt to help constantly
improve the Fire Department’s workplace environment, and – in
concert with the LAFD’s own Commission – we are now exploring
ways in which there can be a significant follow up on these efforts.
- Department
of Neighborhood Empowerment –
our role in enhancing the network of Neighborhood Councils is ever-growing
as we function as, “Final Decision-Makers”
when challenges to election results are filed, and when we are called
upon to be facilitators to help mitigate disputes that erupt involving
Neighborhood Councils’ leaders and stakeholders.
- Los
Angeles Unified School District –
not only during times of violence on all too many high school and middle
school campuses but also in attempts to reduce the possibility of crises
from occurring in the first place, members of our Field Team are constantly
creating and carrying out programs
– on their own and in collaborative efforts with others
– all over the City; they are chairing schools’
human relations committees and participating in safety committees throughout
Los Angeles, and – along with the Mayor’s Senior Education
Advisor – we continue to co-chair a “safe schools task force,” which
meets monthly and first conceived the “safe passages initiative,” among
other innovations.
- Mayor’s
Office and All Council Districts – we often function
as the “eyes and ears” for each of these entities, and
we stand ready to accept assignments that come our way; e.g., at
the invitation of Council Member Janice Hahn, we have been facilitating
semi-weekly meetings of stakeholders who are anxious to minimize
the influence of gangs throughout Watts and elsewhere in CD 15, we
are in the process of launching similar efforts in CDs 11 and 12
in response to requests that we have received from Council Members
Bill Rosendahl and Greig Smith, we have played a pivotal role in
helping to enhance the agenda of the City Council’s Ad Hoc
Committee on Gang Violence and Youth Development, we have regularly
consulted with the Mayor’s Senior Advisor on Education and
worked with her to ensure the success of some projects that she has
initiated, and we assisted the Commission on Children, Youths and
Their Families by offering our facilitation services when it hosted
several South Los Angeles Community Safety Forums earlier this year.
- Other Tasks – Members of our Field Team are deeply involved in helping to improve communication skills among public housing personnel and residents, to be supportive of the community’s immigrants and refugees and their organized advocates, to assist those organizations that represent gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Angelenos, et al. Also, in response to instructions, which are embedded in the 2006-07 Budget, we have assumed the task of working with both the Commission for Children, Youth and Their Families and the Commission on the Status of Women in working with them to develop their respective 2007-08 budgets – as well as our own - and, on an on-going basis, to oversee the appropriate disbursement of funds by each of these two agencies - and ours - during 2006-07.