Mark O’Connor is the Executive Director of the Families Behind the Badge Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting first responders and their families in the Philadelphia area. The foundation provides financial assistance to families of fallen or critically injured responders, promotes positive community relations, and offers mental health resources for responders and their loved ones.
Through its partnership with the Police Youth Alliance Program, Families Behind the Badge works to ease tensions between law enforcement and inner-city communities. The initiative fosters positive interactions between officers and community members, especially children, through educational and enrichment activities.
These programs help reshape relationships by allowing officers and students to bond in meaningful ways, ultimately improving dynamics in disadvantaged areas of Philadelphia. O’Connor, who actively participates in every event, sees firsthand the positive impact on children and works closely with police departments and schools to coordinate activities. From carpentry workshops to chess clubs, Families Behind the Badge is building stronger connections and inspiring the next generation to trust and engage with their local police officers.
What are some of the activities you’ve put together to strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve?
Right before COVID, we finished a year with a big event. So, we were in 15 schools in 2019. One of our big programs was chess. The officers would go into these schools and play chess with the kids every week for 12 weeks. So, we had a giant chess tournament and Temple University, Temple Police specifically, have been very helpful to us – great partner. We were doing it at McGonagall Hall, and this was the third year in 2019. So, we bring all of the kids that are in these programs, and we had a couple hundred kids there and probably had 50 cops. The families were invited, and a lot of families came. We got busses, we brought everybody there, we fed everybody, and they played rounds of chess. In between rounds, we had a carpentry program for the kids at the school. It was all girls in the carpentry program, which is pretty funny. They brought out their birdhouses that they made with the police officers and you just see this fantastic bond, you know? And it’s so cool to watch. We were just like, wow, we got this figured out. Then COVID just shut everything down for us. But it was very, very successful. And I guess my point was to tell you that Temple University, specifically, the police department, has been a great partner to us and helped us, letting us use their facilities. So, we get tons of support like that. And it’s very gratifying when people believe and share our mission.
Are there specific neighborhoods that you focus on?
We prefer to be where the need is greatest, so the disadvantaged neighborhoods. We’re in North Philly, we’re in Southwest Philly, certain neighborhoods. And since COVID, we have learned to go where there’s an engaged captain or chief who really believes in the community relations aspect of policing. So, we find those captains or chiefs, and then we hang on for dear life and we keep saying, “Hey, do more, do more, do more.” That’s what makes it successful, when we have an engaged partner that believe in that mission and wants to do more of that kind of work.
Do you see a need for this kind of engagement elsewhere?
We thought it was just needed in the disadvantaged neighborhoods, but that changed during COVID when there were all those marches and the defund the police stuff. I live in Havertown in Delaware County and there was a huge march. And I said, “Holy, we got to do this everywhere.” So, we will also do it wherever we feel there’s a real engagement. We don’t just write checks and hand them to people. We go to the events, and we engage also.
Are there any especially impactful moments that you can recall?
Sure, a couple summers ago – I guess it would be two summers ago in West Philly, in the 18th district. Kids were playing basketball on this particular night, and there was a social media argument between gangs. The one gang knew that the other gang would hang at Christy Rec Center. So, they drove over there. There were three young kids, not in the gang, playing basketball. Two of them get shot and killed. Just a drive by. The captain there was super engaged, so we did a program that following summer called Skills and Drills at the Christy Rec Center. We get there and the basketball court is crap. You know, there’s the one rims bent, there’s no nets. So, first thing we do is we get nets, and we fix that one rim. Then we ended up getting a whole new backboard for one of them and we provided shirts for all the kids. Refreshments each week. We bring pizza. If you came. We got basketballs, we got footballs. We had so many people come in each week, and the first 45 minutes of each session – and the sessions were like two hours – would be a life lesson. This is how you write a check. This is how you open a bank account. The very disturbing one that was apparently the best received was from University of Pennsylvania Hospital. A couple doctors and nurses came and showed the kids how to apply a tourniquet. Isn’t that sad that they had to learn how to do that? But they were tuned in on that. It made me think, well, they’ve all witnessed this, right? So, we’ll provide whatever resources that an officer or a first responder might need to execute a program. As I said, we throw nickels around like manhole covers. We really try to make our money count, and we like to go out to these events and see them in action and make sure the money is being used properly. But the more effective we find a leader or a captain to be, or maybe it’s even a school principal, the more we’re interested in putting money into that and changing that perception.
Do you encounter any challenges?
You have the challenge today of using police as an example, and most of our stuff is done through police departments. They’re so shorthanded in Philly that the community relations officers are supposed to be two in each district. They’re often patrolling the streets. They’re not interacting with the community. They’re solving crimes and trying to protect the people, right? So, the engagement of law enforcement can be tricky. We’re taking what we can get. On the other hand, we’ve never had trouble getting kids to engage, but it has been a challenge to get the parents to engage.
Have you been able to get more parents involved?
Well, when we did Skills and Drills, we had done a press release the second week. Some of the media came out, and it was on the news. Well, the mayor was furious because of how bad the basketball court looked on the news. So, suddenly the city’s out fixing the court and doing the lines right. The week after that, I’m walking up, and I see all these men in suits. I’m like, “What’s this?” The Attorney General, who’s now the governor, had seen it on the news and said, “Yeah, I’m gonna go to that.” So, he shows up, he’s in shorts. He did drills with them, got in the scrimmage with them, and talked to the kids. The engagement from that brought a lot of attention to it. The police commissioner came out the next week or two weeks later and spoke to the kids. Every week there were more parents. We went from about maybe 20 kids the first week to about 120 a few weeks later.
What do you think are some misconceptions that community members might have about law enforcement?
I think it’s generational, and it’s not misplaced, you know, from older people in some of these neighborhoods where the cops were probably heavy handed with the way things were. But it’s not that way now. Younger police officers are very engaged. They want things to be better, right? But it’s going to take some time, and it’s going to take way more than just us doing this. So, I think that the biggest challenge is with older people in these communities who just remember the cops as the enemy. That’s the big challenge and needs to be continually worked on, I think almost every day, for that to change.
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