Hucknall woman Helen awarded BEM for her services to policing

Helen Ridley, 43, is a partnership officer at Nottinghamshire Police and she couldn’t believe it when she heard the news.

She said: “It came as a massive shock. It’s all been quite overwhelming. Especially after the year we have all had where everyone has had to pull together. The news came as a big surprise.

"We will have to have a party to celebrate once we’re allowed.”

In 2017 she volunteered to lead a pilot programme called the ‘mini p olice’ aimed at nine to 11-year-olds in schools, to promote good citizenship, increase trust and confidence in the local police and to address the reduction in local youth provision through the austerity period.

She identified the most socially deprived areas in Nottinghamshire, in which to place the mini police units, working to secure national funding to expand the programme.

Now 26 schools and more than 1,000 pupils are embedded into the programme with 45 per cent of the pupils coming from BAME backgrounds.

In the recent police recruitment programme, the mini po lice supported at recruitment/community cohesion events and as a result 28 per cent of new recruitment applications were from BAME communities, the best achieved to date.

As a natural continuation the mini police are now linked with the p olice cadet program me.

And when Nottinghamshire Police opened the Lyrico Steed c adet base, named after a murdered teenager, the BBC and ITV came to film the official opening and due to the positive publicity, Helen has been asked to support three other forces with their programmes.

The mini police now routinely help with local policing events such as marathons, professional football matches, stop hate crime campaigns, and remembrance parades.

There are currently more than 79 schools on the waiting list due to its success.

In 2019, reports of under 18s missing from home reduced by 32 per cent and Helen’s commitment to this programme has been instrumental in this positive development.

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