The project is part of the department's strategic plan. It involves a partnership with the Oceanside Unified School District and is funded largely by a Community Development Block Grant. The project unites 15 police officers with 15 at-risk youths in middle or high school 4 times annually in an outdoor experience. Participants are challenged with mental, emotional, and perceived physical risks as they extend their comfort zones while maneuvering together in the contest of non-adversarial problem solving through a ropes course. The targeted youth are deemed to be at risk when behavioral and learning difficulties, drug abuse, family stress, potential for gang involvement, violence, financial pressures, and other factors pose barriers to maintaining personal and academic progress. The police officers volunteer their personal time. Eighty-four youths have taken part since the program began in June 1997. The school principals are enthusiastic about the program; counselors have been crucial to success. The school district provides its formal endorsement, bus transportation, lunches, certificates of appreciation, and onsite chaperones. Kids and Cops COPE provides a unique setting in which police officers change their attitudes toward youth, in which to examine the attitude called scared, and in which a police officer becomes a part of a needy youth. Photograph