In April 2011 I became a Police Community Support Officer working for Lincolnshire Police after starting my career in the sports and leisure industry as a Swimming teacher where I taught all ages and disabilities.
I have always found great joy in helping others which started when I was returning home from a trip abroad as a teenager and someone on the flight stopped breathing. Myself and others performed CPR for over an hour and after an emergency landing the person was taken to hospital. I bumped into that person locally while at work only a few weeks ago and they introduced me to their son as the “person who saved their life.
My job is varied and can be anything from providing reassurance to someone who has been a victim of crime, problem solving complex cases and finding solutions in which everyone would be satisfied, dealing with incidents that may have diverse needs and various community engagements. I enjoy being able to find new solutions and new ways of thinking to have a direct and positive impact on the community. This role allows that and also to have a practical hands-on role and where I work directly with partner agencies and the community.
Over the years I have received Chief constable commendation and a Royal Humane Society Testimonial on Parchment for my actions.
More recently I pride myself on the work I undertake around Dementia safeguarding and being able to support people living with Dementia on maintaining an as “normal routine” life as possible through the dementia scheme. I also actively look to educate not only my colleagues but others in the community on Dementia and how it affects a person and how we can help those living with it.
I work tirelessly in ensuring both the local residents and the average 3.5 million seasonal visitors to the Lincolnshire coast have a safe place to live, work and visit through Operation Atlantis which I launched in 2023 and for the first time and it formed part of Lincolnshire Police’ Summertime Policing Plan #23.
Op Atlantis is a 2 part approach where a number of partner agencies such as Police HM Coastguard, National Coastwatch institute (NCI) and the RNLI to name a few work in collaboration.
Part 1 is to provide key safety messaging along with a wrist band for children and vulnerable adults to wear to provide a name and contact number for NOK, thus allowing the child or vulnerable adult to be reunited with their NOK reducing the call for service of emergency services and providing a faster resolution for all parties involved
Part 2 is improving and refining our joint agency response to find those missing as quickly and safely as possible to ensure the least amount of distress and harm as possible to those missing and also to reduce the demand time of the emergency services involved. This had a hugely positive outcome last year and we are about to launch Op Atlantis 2024 to continue to build on the previous success. This is being supported more by Partners due to the increased demand on Policing and the previous success.
I thrive on collaborative working with a wide range of partners to ensure all of that is met, sometimes through simple information sharing and linking people together, sometimes through leading new training and exercise and sometimes by just undertaking the task directly. I have improved the services to the local area that I work and for my colleagues by initiating the introduction of airwaves with the Coastguard and by acquiring an All -train vehicle for the use of my colleagues in difficult and challenging terrains which also benefit and supports the other emergency services as it can be utilised by them for moving equipment and/or casualties if needed. This then reduces the time involved in securing a positive outcome.
