PRRT’S TRAINING AWARD TRIUMPH

The Police Rehabilitation and Retraining Trust has recently been awarded a National Training Award for the design and delivery of a training and development programme for Full Time Reserve Officers of the PSNI.

PRRT was one of 17 Northern Ireland organisations out of 73 to receive a training industry “Oscar” at a prestigious ceremony in the Culloden Hotel recently. The awards, which were organised by the Department of Employment and Learning, are acknowledged as the ultimate accolade in national training. 

The award winning Development Programme which was designed by an inter-disciplinary team at PRRT, has assisted Full Time Reserve participants to complement and enhance their existing skills base, develop new skills and realise new opportunities.

Mr Joe Stewart, Director of Human Resources, PSNI says:

 "Congratulations to PRRT on winning the National Training Award for the Full Time Reserve (FTR) Retraining Programme. The PRRT Programme was designed in close liaison with the FTR Severance Unit (PSNI). As the needs of FTR Officers were known to be varied the retraining programme was designed to be relevant and flexible. The programme is now in its third year. Officer feedback is carefully monitored and results have shown that expectations have consistently been exceeded".

Eddie Gaw, Chief Executive of PRRT, congratulated the team on its achievement:

“We competed against many other private and public sector organisations for this award.

It is gratifying for all concerned that our work has received such national recognition.”

A total of 20 programmes were delivered during the competition period, (June 05 – Oct 07) and 78% of the 491 participants have already achieved their target goals. The remainder are proactively working on the implementation of their personal action plans to attain their identified goal.

Glenda Martin, Head of Training and Education at PRRT, says:

“Police officers have particular skills but some do not always recognise their civilian employability or their many transferable skills. This was an enormous challenge which PRRT fully embraced, and the results indicate that we have been successful in assisting clients to achieve their desired outcomes. We believe that using training to develop personal skills is a guaranteed recipe for success and paves the way towards establishing a better future, not only for individuals, but also organisations, ultimately benefiting the local economy”.

Joanna Wills, who assisted in the training course design, delivered the pilot courses and now tutors on the award winning programme, explained:

“My involvement in the focus group activity, the course design and tutoring has allowed

me to witness participants grow in confidence and gain recognition in the civilian world for skills and expertise gained during a significant police career”.

The Training and Education Department assists individuals to obtain academic qualifications, business, personal and vocational skills to underpin their post policing goals. The service provides a varied range of training and development activities, and offers some of the highest quality accredited training in the UK. We also have a bursary scheme to support external study outside our provision.

For more information please contact the Training Department on (028) 9042 7788

or email: training@prrt.org

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