Some metro area Student Resource Officers are getting intensive training where they are learning to be ‘G.R.E.A.T’, which is an acronym for Gang Resistance, Education and Training.
It’s a program aimed at keeping kids out of gangs, and gangs out of schools.
Our partners at Channel 2 Action News got a chance to see how it all works while visiting the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth County.
When school starts back up in the fall, Student Resource Officers (SROs) will be equipped with new tools to gain the trust of students, connect with them, and teach them how to stay away from gangs.
During the training, Channel 2′s Tom Jones traveled to Monroe County to watch as SROs pretended to be students pressured to do the wrong thing.
SROs used roleplaying to practice helping students make better decisions and stay out of gangs.
It’s all a part of a week-long program at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center where metro area SROs and police officers are learning the ins and outs of the G.R.E.A.T program in an effort to save lives.
“We’re losing a lot of youth to gangs. They’re getting younger and younger,” Sgt. Raynard Price with Atlanta Public Schools explained.
Sgt. Price says the program is teaching them how to best connect with kids, give them the tools and confidence to say no to gangs and violence.
“So that way, when they’re dealt with a situation where they might have to decide right from wrong, they know which decision to make,” he said.
It’s not just officers getting involved. SROs also partnered with state prosecutors to train for school interactions and students.
“We want to sort of divert students from embarking on gang lives,” Ryan Buchanan, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia said.
Buchanan and his office are partnering with the others to offer the training. “We are confident that if we can increase those positive interactions that they won’t embark on this life of crime that the gangs are pushing,” Buchanan said.
The U.S. Attorney said the G.R.E.A.T program will be introduced in about 70 schools this year.
The SROs said what they are learning they will teach to students, so they can steer their classmates and friends in the right direction.