DC Police Look for Ways to Connect With City Youths

— -- As many cities across the country grapple with a surge of gun violence and increasingly strained relations between law enforcement and urban communities, police in the nation's capital are hoping they have found a way to help overcome the challenges

Each season for the past year, the city's "Youth Creating Change" program has been connecting more than two dozen inner-city kids with a team of police officers and a top aide from the mayor's office, hoping to transform the way those kids think about police -- and themselves.

For more than three months this summer, ABC News followed one group as they spent more and more time with officers Kenneth Casey and Tyron Wallace, along with John Mein, who heads community outreach for the city government.

The Metropolitan Police Department hopes to get even more of its officers involved in the program, ultimately hoping to bring in hundreds of youths every year.