South Ayrshire Council News

South Ayrshire has approved a new South Ayrshire Community Planning initiative, where Strathclyde Police Officers will work actively with pupils, teachers and members of the community in four secondary schools and their feeder primaries in South Ayrshire.

One Police Officer will be based in each of four secondary schools, Kyle Academy, Belmont Academy, Ayr Academy and Marr College. The Campus Police Officers will work with the schools to promote community safety and develop positive and responsible attitudes within the schools and the community.

Councillor Margaret Toner, Depute Leader of the Council and Chair of the South Ayrshire Community Safety Partnership said: “This is an exciting new development, which fits in with the work already being carried out by the Partnership.

“For several years the Partnership has been involved in supporting and promoting activities for young people to help prevent them becoming involved in antisocial behaviour. To successfully tackle community safety and antisocial behaviour issues we need to build and strengthen links between young people and the rest of the community. This has to be done in schools, with local residents, the Police and Community Support Officers and the Campus Police Officers will help to do this.”

The Campus Police Officers will focus on improving support for pupils, their families and the whole school community, including:

• Improving relationships between young people and the Police.
• Engaging with young people and developing their role in the community
• Problem solving in the school and community
• Helping local people to have more say in community safety issues in the school and community.
• Participating in the Pupil’s Council/Forum.
• Developing and delivering specific projects such as Internet safety, youth crime prevention and personal safety.
• Providing a visible presence in and around the school community.
• Linking young people to existing constructive activities.
• Supporting and developing activities to address challenging behaviour.
• Linking young people to programmes and support already in place.
• Liasing with departments and organisations already involved in delivering programmes for young people.
• Promoting a restorative justice approach to encourage young people to take responsibility for their school and community.
• Reducing the number of offences in and around schools.
• Increasing the number of pupils who feel safe in school.

To give members of the Council a deeper insight into the way in which Police Officers function within schools a presentation, led by Superintendent John Hazlett was given during the Council meeting. Superintendent Hazlett said : “This is an excellent example of partnership working to address some of the underlying problems in our communities. The introduction of campus based police officers will help to establish positive relationships between young people and the police and develop mutual respect. We want to help bridge the gap and make our young people feel part of the community in which they live and go to school and not be criticised and isolated because of the acts of a very small minority. Campus based police officers are, I believe, the keystone of that bridge and will be a very valuable and worthwhile use of Police and Council resources.”

The Police and the Council and jointly funding the initiative.