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  • Chief Rat

    Welcome to the Police Community Forum

    By Chief Rat

    Welcome to the Police Community blog! Here, we strive to provide a thriving platform and useful resource for individuals looking to embark on a career in the police service. Whether you're interested in becoming a police officer, a PCSO, or a member of the police staff, you've come to the right place.  Our community is filled with interesting discussions on recruitment and promotion opportunities, as well as invaluable advice on various specialisms within
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Addressing The Challenges of Mental Health In The United Kingdom

Introduction In recent years, the United Kingdom has seen a growing awareness of the challenges surrounding interactions between law enforcement and individuals with mental health issues. The tragic incidents involving individuals in crisis have highlighted the urgent need for a more compassionate and effective approach to handling these situations. This blog post aims to shed light on these challenges, explore potential solutions, and emphasize the importance of partnerships with

Chief Rat

Chief Rat in Addressing Mental Health In The United Kingdom

Welcome to the Police Community Forum

Welcome to the Police Community blog! Here, we strive to provide a thriving platform and useful resource for individuals looking to embark on a career in the police service. Whether you're interested in becoming a police officer, a PCSO, or a member of the police staff, you've come to the right place.  Our community is filled with interesting discussions on recruitment and promotion opportunities, as well as invaluable advice on various specialisms within

Chief Rat

Chief Rat in Welcome to Police Community

Once upon a time in January 2021

I posted a couple of these a few years ago and got some decent reception, I thought it would be nice to write a couple more of my experiences more recently. I am approaching 5 years with Thames Valley at the time of writing this.   …Sometime in January 2021. Location: [Redacted] Night shift.   ….The night is young. I tend to leave for work as late as possible. I recently moved so it is a bit of a trial and error to see how much time I can chip away at the commute be

Ironic

Ironic + in Once upon a time in January 2021.

SEARCH Assessment

Since applying for the role of a Police Constable with Essex Police in March 2020, I've been checking emails every day for updates and to keep an eye out for any announcements regarding my application. I recently took part in the telephone briefing in preparation to attend the SEARCH Assessment on 8th April 2020. Following from the Governments announcements of lockdown and introductions of social distancing as a result of COVID-19, I was very disappointed, but understood the reasons, to find out

BP98

BP98

Shortlisting & Briefing

Today I received an update on my application to confirm that I had been successful at passing the shortlisting stage of my application. I was then invited to take part in a telephone briefing for the next stage of my application which would be the SEARCH Assessment day.  I was very excited by this and felt that my application was moving at a good pace. The invite for the briefing was to take place on 2nd April 2020...so, I added it to my diary and started to conduct my own research into the

BP98

BP98

Application complete

From as young as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a Police Officer. From watching almost every Police TV programme possible to watching Police Officers at work, it has always appealed to and been the dream career of mine.  After previous discussions and failing to be successful, this evening I spoke with my partner again about my thoughts of applying to Essex Police... this evening, we agreed that it was the right time to make this change!   

BP98

BP98

Week 4

Week 4 was certainly an interesting one. It saw my first arrest for drink driving, once again looking for a missing person who was allowed to walk out of where she was being cared and also saw me attend a nasty domestic between a mother and son. I am now confident is how to deal with missing people and compact, I feel confident in dealing with drink drivers but I am still a little unsure on domestics. I have been to a few now but there is something about them that I just cannot seem to grasp. Pe

PCALEX

PCALEX

Week 3

Week 3 saw me grow in confidence at jobs and experience my first bit of confrontation although not physical just a heated exchange of words. I have never really been a very confrontational person and coming into the job I was a little worried about how I would react in those situations however I felt that I managed the situation well and with a little help from Alan all was resolved and the suspect taken to custody. This week saw me experience Berrywood for the very first time and I am sure it w

PCALEX

PCALEX

Week 2

This week saw me work my first ever night shifts, something that I was certainly not looking forward to when I became operational and was not sure how I would cope with them. It is safe to say that although they are a shock to the system it is the early shifts that are the worst! I was still at the stage where I was more comfortable watching and learning from Alan as this is how I have always best learnt however towards the end of the week I was a lot more confident on being the first one into t

PCALEX

PCALEX

Week 1

Week 1 of being an operational police officer certainly saw me out of my depth and struggling to come to terms with the position I was now in, however, it was also the most exhilarating and interesting week. It was an uphill battle from the very beginning, trying to remember the training we had been given but also trying to bring the human being element into it as well. Week 1 involved my first arrest, a warrant on a shipping container, first domestic, a hate crime, a sudden death and a high ris

PCALEX

PCALEX

It's been a long time coming!

Bonus points to whoever knows the song that has the blog title in!  Happened to be listening to it as I was thinking of a name! As the title suggests, its been a long time to start my PC training.  I'll start from the beginning.  Some will be vague for a reason.   Ten years ago I was in a rut.  In a job I hated (petrol station) about to start a uni course I wasn't interested in, but felt forced to apply for uni at college (radio production).  I was at work and got talking to a police o

LosingGrip

LosingGrip

First Days

I'll not use his name as he is still a serving Officer. He turned up at the Station to introduce himself to the shift. A group of us went up to the canteen and we chatted for a long while. He was quiet, but aren't we all in a new crowd? His first day of his four weeks with us was the beginning of a week of nights. I must admit, I wasn't sure about the new system of Constables beginning their service without any training apart from Defensive Skills Instruction. I don't know if it has changed, but

Bradders2175

Bradders2175

First blog post

Hi,  This is my first blog in my journey to become a police officer.  I have attemped to become a officer in the past but fell short. I have not let this get me down and I am giving it one more try. I have been studying on my SET books. I purchased some books from How2be. It was really helpful to have practice papers. I have been studying information handling, maths and language. I have also began to run outside, I am using a app called couch to 5k, this is to build my fitnes

AHussain

AHussain

A night on the town

Tour of duty - Saturday 18th August 2018  I have served with my force for approaching 2 and a bit years. My last blog documented a ride-along in February 2016 before I joined. It is interesting reading a blog pre and post joining. It is 9 pm I begin work with a trudge to my night shift.  I had been on the rota to be doing a late shift but was moved to cover a lack of resourcing. I am very tired. Early shifts straight into night shifts without a shift to transition body clock is a

Ironic

Ironic

Tales of my Tutorship

Thought it was about time I did a little update on here, thanks to @PC123WANNABE for reminding me! Since I last posted, I've pretty much completed my time as a tutored constable and will be being made independent in the next couple of weeks. At the end of the classroom training, you go out to your station and work with another officer who's a trained 'Tutor' for a number of weeks until you're allowed to work independently. In my force, the tutorship is 15 weeks. You usually get assigned one

alicing

alicing

At Long Last

So having arrived in Glasgow last night for a festival, I went out on the hunt to find suitable parking spaces in the city. I left looking for a parking space, and came back with a final offer of employment as a Police Officer! At the moment it hasn't really sunk in, and I doubt it will seem real until I've passed out, but after starting a degree in Policing in September 2013, to applying and being rejected in 2014, it feels like a long long process has finally come to an abrupt end! T

H-H

H-H

Home Visit

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog, mainly because nothing's been happening. I attended my medical which went smoothly, but involved waiting for 4 hours with other candidates in the piping hot waiting room of a converted semi detached. Aside from that it's just been chasing up references and trying to extend my son's vocabulary past "dog", "mum", "dad" and "gone" (which is apparently now a noun used to refer to a bin) Late this morning I got a call from my local Neighbourhood

H-H

H-H

Becoming a Special - The assessment

So this time last year I made a big life change and moved from the Midlands down to London. It was something I'd been thinking about for a couple of years but for some odd reason (comfort zone/it was a scary thought) I just hadn't done it yet. Cue falling in love at the end of 2015 and she then moves to London, becoming my catalyst to do so as well. In November of 2016 I decide to get out of my comfort zone again and do something else I'd been thinking about for years, join the Police! Unfortu

sim

sim

New Kid on the Beat - First Shifts!

Thank you all again for the lovely comments on my last post! I'm well into my second set of shifts now so I thought I'd update you on my time on division so far.  My first few days were very eventful, from my first ever real blue light run to a sudden death to arresting a violent pensioner, and I've learnt so much about not only the job but myself already.  A few years ago, like many, I didn't quite realise that the job of a Police Officer stretches so much further than fighting and solving

alicing

alicing

The World Cup Final

Well well well... I made it through to the finals without any of Gazza's tears or Psycho's missed penalties and it looks like all those years of hurt might be coming to an end at last. I haven't heard the result yet - at least not formally - but one of the officers who interviewed me gave me some positive feedback once the interview had ended.  I'm not going to count my chickens until I've had that email with a big thumbs up, but hopefully we're getting there! The interview itself

H-H

H-H

Response Driving & Passing Out

On Friday 26th June 2017, less than a week ago, I passed out as a PC.  Since my last update, training has been a mixture a three week response driving course, final knowledge checks and consolidation days, parade practice and our pass out parade. Our standard response driving course was incredible and by far one of the best parts of the 26 week training course. We traveled up and down the force every day at crazy speeds and I loved every second of it, blue lights especially! The final drivi

alicing

alicing

Once more into the breach

The last 4 working days have felt like  4 working years, filled with endless refreshing of emails and irrational Google hunts as to how long for SEARCH results... This morning I got the call that I had been waiting eagerly for/dreading, I've passed the assessment centre! Ecstatic is not the word! Whilst I'm under no illusions that the final interview is far from a formality, I'm confident after my past experience was that it was a much less robotic and unfriendly assessment environment

H-H

H-H

The World Cup Semi Final

So today was the day I've been counting down for over a month. After meticulous preparation, I was still apprehensive that I would get caught out by something!  Things started to go awry at about 0230 this morning when my darling son decided to scream the house down - and then continue to wake up shouting every hour until I got up at 0600. It's the first time he's done it in months and it's almost like he knew I needed my sleep! As for the Assessment Centre itself, obviously I can't go

H-H

H-H

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