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"Liz O'Connor is a true professional. She is unusually intelligent and is great at helping groups arrive at consensus. People appreciate Liz's ability to help move a conversation through difficult issues to a conclusion that all agree is better than they could have developed on their own."

— Jack McDevitt, Director
Institute on Race and Justice, Northeastern University

 

Strategic Partners with Police And Other Criminal Justice Organizations

Jim Jordan

Jim Jordan managed the Boston Police Department's Office of Strategic Planning and, with Liz O'Connor, facilitated the delivery of training on police strategies to local, national, and international criminal justice audiences, through partnerships with Department of Justice entities and others. In 1998, Jim led the BPD, in a partnership with the National Institute of Justice, the former Corrections Program Office, the Innovations program at Harvard, and the Institute for Law and Justice, in a multisite national training on police-corrections partnerships. He facilitated similar training work on Operation Ceasefire and other innovations, for over 350 visiting national and international criminal justice organizations and executives, which emerged from Boston in the decade 1994-2004. The innovations developed in that period are still actively used by and continue to evolve in American policing. For two years Jim developed police executive educational programming at Northeastern University before embarking on a private training and consulting business. Jim consults on strategy and organizational development with municipal, state, and campus police departments, as well as state chiefs associations. He holds an MPA from the Kennedy School at Harvard University.

Liz O'Connor

Liz O'Connor is a trainer, facilitator, and curriculum designer specializing in working with police/criminal justice organizations and in adult learning theory. Her experience in these areas includes designing and teaching online and face-to-face courses for SUNY/New Paltz, UMASS/Boston, and Northeastern University. She also has worked as the Executive Director of the Adult Learning Program in Jamaica Plain, MA, and as a consultant for the Massachusetts Department of Education on Adult and Community Learning Services.

At the Boston Police Department Liz worked with senior police commanders to design, fund, and implement new initiatives supporting innovative practices and community-based policing. Liz founded Strategy Matters in 2000, Inc. (SMI), a consulting organization that works with public and private agencies in public safety/criminal justice, workforce development, education, and human/social services. Some of Liz's recent consulting engagements include the International Association of Chiefs of Police (writing and delivering training curriculum for chiefs, line officers, and corrections officials in various content areas), the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office (lead strategic planner for the development of Boston's Family Justice Center), and the Boston Rape Crisis Center where she serves as a law enforcement expert reviewer on training curriculum and design. Liz holds an MA in Philosophy from University of Washington and a B.A. in Philosophy and Politics from Mount Holyoke College.

Helping to Do the Right Thing

Our reason for being is to serve as a resource to departments and executives who are always trying to do the right things in an increasingly complex world. Police respond to every person's worst nightmare. All it takes is for the person in pain to summon you by punching three numbered buttons on a telephone. The inherent physical, emotional and intellectual stresses of helping people in their worst moments, through the instrument of 9-1-1, act on individuals and organizations in ways that make it difficult to correct organizational problems. The nature of demand to attend to urgencies and emergencies makes it hard to address the problems that drive these 9-1-1 calls. But not impossible. This is where we can be a resource.

Belief in Bedrock Values

We see crisis as opportunity, with our unshakeable hope flowing from our belief in the core promise of the police: to help people and their communities by reducing fear and harm.

Bringing People Together

We engage with people and organizations on their terms: the problems they want to work through, calling on the essential pride and savvy of the people inside the organization. We certainly will bring insight, knowledge and expertise to the table. But we know the answers always can be found within your grasp.