Share: 

School resource officers learn to handle student issues

Must be mentors, counselors, not just law enforcers
July 25, 2017

It may sound like an easy Monday through Friday job, but a local school resource officer says the job is far from that.

“It's an extremely rewarding job, and I'm a huge advocate of it,” said Georgetown Police Detective Joseph Melvin, who has worked as a school resource officer for three years at Georgetown Middle School.

However, he said, there is a triad that all school resource officers must remember: They are law enforcement officers first, but they must also be informal counselors and mentors.

“You have to get out of patrol mode,” he said.

During the four-day training session, Melvin said, officers review information on special needs students and how autism affects behavior. They also review reasons why children misbehave or act out. “An SRO needs to take the time to find out what the catalyst is,” he said.

And, he said, an SRO must have the patience and understanding to talk to students and get to know them.

Melvin, a certified instructor for the National Association of School Resource Officers, held a training session in June for SROs from a dozen school districts including Laurel, Seaford, Indian River, Capital and Caesar Rodney.

Evelyn Brown, comprehensive school safety manager for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, agrees that SROs must be educators and informal counselors, in addition to law enforcement officers, when they work with school children.

“By training SROs in those three areas, their effectiveness is enhanced, while the image of the officers is given a positive light,” she said.

In August, a second class will be held in New Castle County for school resource officers working at public, charter or private schools in Delaware, Brown said. She said DSHS offered training in Delaware for SROs in order to save local school districts money on travel and housing costs that would be spent to send officers to training out-of-state.

“You are branding not only your law agency, but all law enforcement,” Melvin said. “It's a very influential time for students, and they need to see someone they can trust.”

The benefits of the job are tangible. Melvin said there is nothing more rewarding than watching a student succeed, especially one who had struggled. He said in the world of statistics and data collection, he tries to have as few arrest statistics as possible.

“My goal is to have no arrests this year,” he said. “Then I've done my job.”

Subscribe to the CapeGazette.com Daily Newsletter