Police and Fire Combined Volunteer Scheme

As mentioned in our 2021-2022 annual report, the combined Police and Fire Volunteer Scheme offers young people aged 12 to 18, the unique opportunity to work with Shetland’s Police Scotland and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service teams. Since it was last reported on, it has continued to develop and grow. The purpose of the scheme is to enable services to create positive relationships and engage with members of the community, while providing the public an opportunity to learn and develop valuable life skills. The scheme’s syllabus was designed to encourage skills development in communication, presentation, leadership, self-discipline, efficiency, time management and team work.

The scheme was also created to encourage members to be ambassadors for the services through promotion of a safer community. There have been other service volunteer schemes across the country but never a combination of two so an appeal had to be made to the board to implement it. It is now in its pilot stage and centrally funded.

The scheme also includes adult volunteers. When a call for adult volunteers was put out across Scotland, Shetland received the highest number of responses, which was a happy surprise and meant the process of filling the adult places was reasonably simple. The Scheme was open to all young people that were interested but the services worked with the Anderson High school to identify possible candidates that might benefit from the practical, hands on learning that the scheme would offer. The school encouraged those that find the rigidity of classroom work challenging to apply and supported students to complete the application.

The services were upfront with all applicants as to what their expectations were in relation to behaviour, use of equipment, time keeping and general attitude. Values were set that all would need to adhere to, this was a condition of being accepted onto the scheme.

Feedback from volunteers, parents, carers, teachers and the young people themselves has been wholly positive. It was felt that the young people found a sense of belonging and, as a result, there have been a number of personal growth developments. They have acquired self-discipline in time keeping and attendance and taken responsibility for their own uniforms. They have also developed a number of demonstrable practical skills such as CPR and it positive changes in attitude and behaviour have been noticed, as well as signs of increased confidence.

The mixing of young people and adults offered an important opportunity for the younger members to share a common experience with their seniors, something many young people do not have the opportunity to do. The Adults were trained in safe guarding and a lead volunteer was selected before the scheme began. A young person’s lead was selected on merit by their peers during the scheme. This choice was based, not just on ability, but on presence, leadership skills and empathy.