Dialogue
in Conflict

• Community Builder
• Empowering our Community
• Enlightening our Community
• Engaging Our Community
• Enriching Our Community
• the impact of 4-3-2-1
• What People Say

Tensions between youth and law enforcement are at an all-time high. If we’ve learned anything through the work we do in trial law, it’s that nothing can be resolved without dialogue. Dialogue in conflict is what yields healing. To that end, we are proud to announce Faxon Law Group's collaboration with LiveKind's "Cops & Kids." This has been a true partnership in the making and involved some fun and exciting "behind-the-scenes" work. With the first district funded by Faxon Law Group, we hope the program will be as important to every individual and business in the community as it is to us and that others will step up and provide funds needed to keep this program going throughout the remaining districts of New Haven. 

How it all started!

Cops & Kids is a video-based program that uses the power of candid thoughts and emotions captured in individual workshops to effectively break down barriers between young people and law enforcement. Created at the request of the New Haven Police Department and originally piloted at PAL Camp in New Haven, the program was quickly endorsed by Mayor Harp and the City of New Haven. It just lacked one thing: adequate funding.

We were contacted by the program's creator, Dan Zimmerman, who was familiar with our Community Builder's mission to provide social support and networking opportunities to non-profit organizations seeking to empower, enrich, enlighten and engage our community. We agreed to underwrite the first of ten districts for $25,000 and got to work identifying other community partners who might provide a benefit to Cops & Kids. Meanwhile, Dan got to work selecting the neighborhood youth and police officers who would be involved in the next wave of workshops in Westville.

Cops & Kids' main teaching tool, dubbed the Circle of Conversation, will facilitate an understanding between the two groups as they discuss issues such as aggression, fear, racial stereotypes, mistrust, and other perceptions experienced daily in the world around them. Motivated by current events in our country, and inspired by voices — right here in our backyard — just yearning to be heard, Faxon Law Group is so honored to step up as Cop & Kids' first corporate sponsor. And a big thanks to our media partners, WTNH and ViaMedia TV/Frontier.