The Íøºì±¬ÁÏ, Baltimore Police Athletic/Activities League (UMBPAL) is a mentoring program for second- through eighth-grade students from West Baltimore.
It is a partnership between the Íøºì±¬ÁÏ, Baltimore’s Police Department and the Office of Community Engagement’s Community Engagement Center. The program works to nurture relationships between police officers and neighborhood children through weekly meetings, field trips, and activities.
- Weekly activities include reading enrichment, science experiments, martial arts, career exploration, community service, and visual arts.
- Monthly field trips include visits to cultural museums, historic sites, and theaters.
- Through a partnership with the School of Nursing and the Black Cherry Puppet Theater, the children help create, produce, and perform an original puppet show.
- The children learn about what it takes to become a police officer and how to identify good policing techniques.
- This is the only official National PAL Chapter in Maryland located on a college campus, which makes UMBPAL unique in that it is located within a public urban university devoted to improving the human condition through the professions of dentistry, law, nursing, medicine, pharmacy, and social work.
- Mentors receive training in trauma-informed care, mentoring best practices, and restorative practices.
