Morgan State to Launch Cultural Competency Partnership with Baltimore City Police

Aims to reduce negative engagement between citizens, officers.

Officials from Morgan State University and the Baltimore City Police Department will announce tomorrow a pilot training program designed to improve community policing and relationships between city residents and officers.

The MSU School of Social Work will lead a cultural competency training program for officers with the city and campus police, to encourage more effective communication and understanding in communities, particularly with citizens of varying races, ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic status.

Officials say that the free training, which will open tomorrow with approximately 80 officers from the two departments, will be an essential resource for community development, and could serve as a national model for urban police development.

“Our faculty in the School of Social Work is a highly prepared and trained group of clinicians and we are very pleased to do all that we can to build bridges between neighborhoods and law enforcement,” says SSW Dean Anna McPhatter. “Our goal is to increase the knowledge and skills of police officers that they may be able to use in their interactions with citizens. We want them to understand the uniqueness of the culture in our city and to accept and value Baltimore’s citizens in the same manner they would themselves or others.”