Not that long ago, many children throughout the United States saw police officers as valiant heroes charged with protecting their community from sticky-fingered burglars, spray paint-yielding vandals and greed-filled kidnappers.

Today, area teachers and law enforcement officers have indicated that children are less likely to respect and revere law enforcement. It is instead more common for students in in southwestern Michigan to view cops as nefarious figures and not the good guys or gals.

“There’s just this really negative connotation when it comes to police,” said Kelly Severin, a first grade teacher at Lybrook Elementary School. “They just think they are out to get them. They are somebody to stay away from — not somebody they would go to when they need help.”

This negative connotation can steam from a variety of childhood experiences, such as anxiety-ridden run-ins with child protective services, seeing a parent or a loved one be arrested or hearing about officers harming civilians on the news.

“Throughout the elementary level even, there is a fear of authority figures,” Severin said. “You’ll hear them say when a cop shows up at school ‘they’re here for you. They’re going to get you.’ I’ve had the kid come in from the weekend and tell me about a car accident and say, ‘yeah, when we got in the accident my dad said we needed to duck to hide from the police.’”

To combat this fatalistic view of law enforcement, Severin and Cass County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Tiffany Graves created a program called Adopt a Cop, which exposes elementary school aged children to uniform-wearing professions. Graves meets with Severin’s class once a month, each time bringing in “safety friends,” such as other officers, EMTs, firefighters, military personnel and animal control.

“We want to change the image from I should be scared of them to ‘oh, they are real people,’” Graves said. “Being with Kelly’s class for two years now, you can see in the beginning when I first walk in (at the beginning of the year) there’s still that fear. Then throughout the school year we bring in a safety friend every month, and by the third month they are hugging me and they love me. …It just really changes the dynamic.”

This year, Graves spread the Adopt a Cop program to Marcellus, but she and Severin do not plan to stop there. They are hope the program continues to spread. They are friends with teachers in Florida and other locations throughout the U.S. that are intrigued by the program and would like to pilot it.

The Village of Cassopolis Police Department is also interested in having the program at Sam Adams Elementary school next year, but details for implementing the program have yet to be hashed out.

“We’d love it to be like the D.A.R.E. Program, so we can get it out nationwide and bridge the gap between police and kids,” Graves said. “It also helps kids want to be a police officer, which there is a huge lack of people wanting to be cops right now.”

The requirements for any officer leading the program are that they must dedicate one hour a month to visiting the classroom that has adopted them, networking and gathering recourse and bringing resources to the classroom to teach students about safety. In order for a class to get approval for the program, they must go through their superintendent or principal. The adopted officer must get approval from their sheriff or chief.

For more information on the program, contact Severin at kseverin@eauclaireps.com.