Hundreds of Police Now neighbourhood officers reach graduation milestone
Thursday 15 July 2021
267 officers – based across 17 forces in England and Wales – have graduated from Police Now’s National Graduate Leadership Programme
Two officers received awards for Best Overall Student and Best Impact Assessment
Yesterday (Wednesday 14 July 2021), 267 officers – based across 17 forces in England and Wales – graduated from Police Now’s National Graduate Leadership Programme.
This year’s graduation ceremony was held online and allowed participants to come together with their friends and family in a safe environment to mark the special occasion.
This cohort of officers began their policing careers in 2019 when they embarked on intensive training at Police Now’s specialist academy, before being deployed into their respective forces to finish their training. Here they were supported by their force tutor and Police Now coach alongside their force colleagues.
A number of supervisory officers from partner forces joined the online celebration to congratulate the graduates, with an inspector acknowledging that this milestone is “the end of a beginning” as they graduate from the programme and continue to make a positive impact within their communities.
Two outstanding graduates were recognised by the University of Huddersfield for their contributions to the programme and policing. PC Miriam Chapman-Rosenfeld from the Metropolitan Police Service won the overall ‘Best Impact Assessment’ category and PC Catherine O’Mahony from Essex Police won the ‘Best Overall Student’ category. The university co-delivers the graduate diploma in Professional Policing Practice alongside Police Now.
Graduating officer PC Nilufar Ali, of West Midlands Police, said: “Happy graduation to all of my Police Now cohort colleagues. It has been a pleasure being on this journey with you all and becoming part of West Midlands Police has been an incredible experience – not without its challenges but worth every second. I’m looking forward to what I hope will be the rest of my career.”
Police Now’s mission is to transform communities by recruiting, developing and inspiring diverse leaders in policing.
The two-year National Graduate Leadership Programme recruits, trains and develops outstanding graduates with a commitment to public service and a belief in the enormous positive social change that outstanding community policing can deliver. The participants work as neighbourhood police officers in the most deprived communities in England and Wales.
Of those officers who began their journey on the programme in 2019, 50% identified as female and 17% identified as being from Black, Asian or other minority ethnic backgrounds, with a total of 20 unique languages spoken across the cohort.
Police Now’s Policing & Home Affairs Director, Kurtis Christoforides, said: “We’re immensely proud of these officers and the genuine impact they, and their force colleagues, have delivered in some of the most deprived communities in the country. The commitment they have shown to their neighbourhoods, and to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, over the past two years has been remarkable and I wish them all the very best of luck as they continue their policing careers.”
Last year, Police Now rose to 29th place in the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers and ranked 6th in the Times Top 10 Public Sector Employer of Choice.
Preparations are now underway to welcome the next cohort of participants at Police Now’s academy, who will commence their training in August 2021.
“We’re immensely proud of these officers and the genuine impact they, and their force colleagues, have delivered in some of the most deprived communities in the country. The commitment they have shown to their neighbourhoods, and to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, over the past two years has been remarkable and I wish them all the very best of luck as they continue their policing careers.”