This Week in NIOT

 

 

In the past month, our team has been sharing our work and resources with law enforcement leaders worldwide. In late September, we presented clips from our upcoming film profiling San Francisco hate crimes prosecutor Victor Hwang at the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys conference and joined San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and Cook County, IL Assistant State's Attorney Joy Repella in a panel on dealing with hate crimes. We also participated in a hate crime panel in Dayton, OH at the 24th annual Problem-Oriented Policing Conference.

 

We just returned from the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference, where we presented clips from our upcoming film, Waking in Oak Creek, as part of our panel, "Leading Communities in Crisis: Responding to and Preventing Hate Violence." We were honored to be joined by Oak Creek, WI Police Chief John Edwards, Lt. Brian Murphy, and COPS Office Program Analyst Nazmia Alqadi. Edwards also co-authored an article with NIOT in Police Chief magazine about his department's community work following a hate crime.

 

 

Our staff has begun putting together profiles of Not In Our Town groups across the country and will be sharing their stories on a regular basis. Check out how parent Valerie Hughes is launching a citywide anti-bullying campaign in her town of Oak Ridge, TN after her child was bullied and how longtime activist Tom O'Mara and the Shasta County Citizens Advocating Respect have worked for decades to address and prevent hate in Northern California. This week we share a profile of Alexandra Lee-Jobe of the Davis Phoenix Coalition, which formed after a young gay man was nearly beaten to death in the college town of Davis, CA.

 

 

We said goodbye to a loved colleague, Executive Assistant/Graphic Designer/Producer Shanda Hill, who has moved to Los Angeles to finish her Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production and to pursue a career in film. Shanda will be dearly missed but we are all excited for her to start this new chapter in her life. You can find her credits on IMDB here and watch a piece she produced on a holistic healing approach to addiction treatment.

 

Replacing Shanda, we welcome our new Executive Assistant Cassandra Belson. Cassandra has joined us after earning a Masters in Community Development from the University of California Davis. She previously worked as a community organizer, advocating for racial justice and migrant, women and queer rights. We are excited to welcome Cassandra aboard the NIOT team!  

 

 

This October, Not In Our School celebrated National Bullying Prevention Month by releasing new material to help parents, teachers and students create safe school environments. CNN spoke with Not in Our School director Becki Cohn-Vargas for their article, "Are we too quick to cry 'bully'?" and the California PTA posted Radio Disney's interview with Becki, "Preventing Bullying: What You Can Do" online. Edutopia featured "Bullying: In the Trenches, We Can't Wait for a Definition," an article written by Becki with helpful tips for educators. Most exciting, the Disney Channel and KPIX in San Francisco made videos showcasing the Not In Our School model in action.