Fun Cops: Building Relationships Beyond the Badge

Go-karts. Bowling. Laser tag. Mini golf. Fishing. It might not sound like a traditional youth services program and that's kind of the point.

Fun Cops brings Farmington kids and local police officers together outside the situations where their paths would normally cross. Instead of meeting an officer during a difficult moment, kids spend time with them while bowling a frame, casting a fishing line or racing around a go-kart track.

Over the past few years, about 50 local kids have taken part in the program, run through Farmington Youth Services with support from the Farmington Community Chest. FCC provides a $10,000 allocation every few years to help keep it going, covering costs like activity admission and transportation so the focus stays on getting kids and officers together. But while the outings are what’s funded, the relationships built are what make this program priceless.

Getting to Know the Person Behind the Uniform

Farmington Youth Services works with young people in many different circumstances. Some simply benefit from added connection and positive adult role models. Others may already have encountered systems such as restorative justice or the Department of Children and Families. Fun Cops gives them a chance to interact with police officers in a completely different context, with no desk between them, nobody in trouble, no problem that needs solving. They're just spending time together.

Those relaxed interactions help young people see police officers as people they know and can talk to, while officers get to know the kids beyond whatever circumstances first brought them into contact. That connection can matter later: When a young person is facing a hard decision or thinking through how their choices affect themselves and others, having an established relationship with a trusted adult can change the conversation.

Farmington Youth Services describes its work as promoting positive youth development through parents, schools, police and the broader community. Fun Cops puts that philosophy into action simply: Get people together. Give them something fun to do. Let relationships develop.

For FCC, funding Fun Cops is an investment in those relationships and in a community where kids know there are adults around them paying attention, showing up and rooting for them. Even if they're also trying to beat them at mini golf.



Programs like Fun Cops create the kind of connections that can stay with a kid long after the outing is over. Help us keep those opportunities going for Farmington kids at farmcommchest.org/donate