Empowerment Series, Coffee House Conversations

Press Release

Coffee House Conversations Project Announces Plans For Hillcrest Empowerment Series

As the New Horizons Support Network, Inc. sponsored Coffee House Conversations mission heads into its second season, 2015 – 2016, the planning team for the project announced a forthcoming series, devoted to citizen-police relations in the Hillcrest neighborhood community.

The series will begin on Saturday, November 21 with a New Horizons’ format discussion geared toward establishing ground rules for dialogue on the presently charged topic of citizen-police relations. The second event of the series, scheduled for Saturday, December 5, will spotlight police officers’ personal stories, followed by a third conversation program focusing on citizen stories on the topic.

Bringing a “can do” message to the fore once again through guided community dialogue, New Horizons Support Network Executive Director Anastasia Rosen-Jones and the Coffee House Conversations Volunteer Team are now ramping up their efforts to empower citizens and police to work more closely together with the goal being enhanced teamwork. According to Rosen-Jones, a quote of Sir Robert Peel, father of modern day community policing, pointedly underscores the theme of the series, “….the police are the public and the public are the police…” 

These Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations will be introduced and moderated by Rosen-Jones and feature opening comments by newly appointed Frederick City Police Chief, Edward Hargis. The program will then move forward into an open group discussion to establish norms or ground rules for effective citizen-police dialogue that will serve as a foundation for the series. Input from the group at-large, as well as the participating police officers is expected to spark a lively discussion and help to ensure the objective.

This first in the series of four Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations will be held at Hillcrest Elementary School, 1285 Hillcrest Drive, Saturday, November 21 from 3 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. 

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers programs designed to teach community development and violence-prevention skills and strategies through the conversations model of its “Small Zones of Peace” Project initiative. Now in the process of contributing these organizational strengths to the development of a Frederick County civic conversations coalition, New Horizons, under Ms. Rosen-Jones guidance, is currently building a coalition with a weekly volunteers’ meeting at Dublin Roasters. 

Information about the overall project and the coalition can be found at: zonesofpeacenh.blogspot.com. Ms. Rosen-Jones can be reached at: 240.409.5347 or zonesofpeacenh@aol.com.