National Volunteers Week - A Thank You From Chief Officers

As part of National Volunteers Week, we are celebrating the hard work of the individuals that give their free time to assist police officers and staff in their operational duties, in many cases on top of busy day jobs.

In this video, our chief officers say a few words to express what this means to them and the force, both year-round and especially during this time of crisis.

Within our force, we have three groups of volunteers that give their time to policing.

Our Special Constables are voluntary police officers. They have the same powers as police constables, but do their shifts as well as studying, or having a full-time job.

The 144 Specials we have in our policing family play a key role in crime reduction, detection and incident response by assisting with services provided by regular officers. By providing a visible uniformed presence, Special Constables help to reduce the fear of crime and promote confidence within their local communities.

Alongside them, 104 Police Support Volunteers come in to help officers with a number of roles. They assist with role play for officer training, mock exercises, and also help us spread crime prevention messages as far and wide as possible. They bring a wide range of skills and experience that add huge value to the work of our trained police officers and staff.

For our younger communities, we have 36 junior and 70 senior Cadets in force, who are aged between 13-18 years-old. The Cadets meet every week, and learn about police procedures and criminal law, take part in inspections and drill parades, and go on team building activity weekends.

They also attend a lot of events and go out into communities to distribute crime prevention advice and support charity fundraising and local community events.

This week we are looking forward to celebrating their invaluable work, and hope you will join us in thanking them for everything they do to keep Derbyshire safe.