Roanoke City Police partner to mentor at risk youth

ROANOKE (WSLS 10) - Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Virginia renewed its relationship with the Roanoke Police Department on Wednesday, pairing officer as mentors to at risk children.

It's called the Bigs in Blue.

As you may remember, the program was recently featured on "Today."

Big Brothers Big Sisters is hoping to recruit more local officers to serve as "bigs" for children who need a good role model.

June House, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters, said it's important to build a positive relationship with the children in the program and the police.

"We know that police officers and everyone involved in wearing a badge is important to our community and we feel like the littles, if they are ever going to fully understand how to engage in law enforcement and maybe even consider it as a career, they really need to have a relationship with the individual," House said.

The organization says it's important for children who face adversity to learn to know police officers as regular people, not just authority figures.


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