“It’s not all blue lights and pub fights.”

You’re wanting to become a Special Constable alongside your career vocation, whether that be as a teacher, working for the NHS, a bus driver, bank manager, wind turbine technician, stay at home parent, business owner, manager, student, and the list goes on.

You want to give back to your community because you live and work in that same community, and after all, you just want to make it a safer and stronger place to be.

You take the plunge, put yourself out there, and start applying, but then you find out that you must commit to fifteen weeks of training on evenings and weekends.

But there’s a reason for this, and it’s extremely important for those joining our Special Constabulary to receive the same level of training as our regular officers, not only for the safety of the public, but for your own safety too.

As a Special Constable you will have the same powers and responsibilities as our regular officers, attending the same jobs, and dealing with the same people who are often at their most vulnerable by the time we get to them.

We’ve been listening to the Specials who have recently been through the training and have since been one of the first forces to adopt a more hybrid-training model.

This model of learning means we can be far more flexible in our approach and ensure that those who are passionate about serving and volunteering their own time to give back to our communities are given the opportunity and support along the way to do just that.

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