Two West Midlands Police PSCOs have been busy brainstorming ways to reach the public during this new age of social distancing.
On hearing that a vaccination site was opening in Tipton this month, PCSOs Emerson Dunne and George Lewis took this as the perfect opportunity to promote some of our community engagement platforms such as WMNow, Street Watch and Neighbourhood Watch to members of the public passing through the site.
However getting people to sign up posed a bit of an obstacle as we needed to ensure they could provide their personal data in a secure and Covid safe way.
But this did not deter our two PSCOs, who contacted local secondary school RSA Academy and asked design technology students to create a post box for the police force to use, which would allow people to submit forms to the force in a secure and germ-free way.
Head of the DT department at RSA Academy in Tipton, Mr Jamie Quinn, who led the project, said: “It was something the students were all glad to do especially in times like this.
“Because of Covid the school workshop has been closed however we were able to create a bubble for the students, allowing them to use the space in a protected environment.
“We had a few Year 9 students taking part and they’ve done really well. They created the post box from wood and put a lot of effort into sanding it down and painting it up. Some of the students met with the PCSOs after who thanked them for their hard work.”
PCSO Emerson Dunne added: “Thanks to RSA Academy and its hard-working pupils we can now offer the public a secure way to provide us their information.
“We are trying to promote community engagement and the post box not only allows people to fill out forms that have been translated into various language formats to include all members of the community, but can also be obtained in a Covid secure fashion.
“The post box is now up and running at the Tipton Leisure Centre Covid vaccination site, it will stay there initially with a view to moving it around different sites in the borough in the future.”
Content courtesy of West Midlands Police.
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