The Chattanooga Police Department and Unum announced Wednesday a new partnership to aid children following traumatic events that require police presence.
The “Cops Care” program will provide bags to children at police scenes in an attempt to bring comfort and a distraction. The kits will include items such as a blanket, a stress ball, stuffed animals and coloring books.
“This is just another item that the officers are going to have available,” said police Chief David Roddy, “so that if they see a child in need – a child that has been hurt, victimized, experienced trauma – this is something that they can use to kind of mitigate where that trauma is going right then, distract the child out of that harsh and hard moment in their lives and let the officers do what they always do and strive to do, which is help our community.”
The idea came about after a former Chattanooga police officer told his coworker, Officer Alex Forgey, about a stressful call where there were two children present, but there was little he could do to distract or entertain them. Alex then told his mom Ruthie Forgey, a corps officer for the Salvation Army in Cleveland, and by early 2020 she began searching for partners to help create something to help children during a crisis.
Ruthie Forgey said that while the pandemic slowed the launch, she and other community partners, including Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association President Olga de Klein, began seeking donations and doing research into what might be most helpful psychologically and emotionally for kids in an adverse situation.