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Police to use teddy bears to comfort kids
By John W. GOODWIN JR.
YOUNGSTOWN
Some officers in the Youngstown Police Department will be getting new partners that are less than a foot tall, do not speak, but likely will bring a smile to the face of a young child.
Sue Miller and other members of the Association of Professional Administrative Staff, a union at Youngstown State University, delivered 60 teddy bears to city police officers Friday.
Miller said the bears are to be handed out to youths who end up involved in a domestic-violence situation and may be fearful or lonely and looking for some form of comfort. She said officers can use their discretion in handing out the bears as they respond to various calls in the city.
Miller said even in cases where a woman is leaving an abusive relationship, kids often are taken, but not much else, so the children often are moved without any of the comforts from home.
“If a woman is leaving her home in that type of situation, she is probably leaving that house without anything [or] only a few pieces of clothes, so this can offer some form of comfort to the child,” she said.
The bears are about 9 inches tall, soft and wear a shirt that reads “YSU APAS Cares.”
Detective Sgt. David Lomax said the bears are a small but important part of the process in dealing with families going through a domestic- violence situation.
“The bears will always help when abused mothers or abused children come in,” he said. “The bears are good for them because it gives them something to concentrate on while mom is being interviewed or the officer is starting his investigation.”
The police department’s Family Investigative Unit has a television and video- game system on hand to keep kids occupied in the office, but Lomax said the bears are something extra to ease the minds of those young people.
Miller said the $250 used to purchase the bears comes from a grant supplied by the Northeastern Ohio Education Association.
She said members of APAS have used grant funds for other community-service projects in the past. She said the union attempts to use the funds to fill community needs.
“We just try to find a hole in the community and fill that need. Providing the bears is a great thing to do. If police can give the child something while on these calls, that would be great,” she added.
The bear donation, Miller said, ties in with National Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.
She said the donation also capped off Nonviolence Week at YSU.