In Hertfordshire, Brownies from Digswell, armed with their newly-achieved Crime Prevention badges, will be helping to make their village even safer, thanks to input from their local neighbourhood policing team.
PC Ben Satchfield and PCSO Aron Roden, who is a new PCSO in the Welwyn Safer Neighbourhood Team, visited 1st Digswell Brownies at Digswell Village Church in Warren Way last week to help the 28 children to get their Crime Prevention Badges.
‘PC Ben’, as the children know him, talked to the Brownies about personal safety, how Neighbourhood Watch works and keeping possessions and their homes safe. Ben secretly asked Aron to dress in ordinary clothes and sneak in to ‘steal’ Ben’s bag – he then asked the Brownies what they saw and to help him to track down the ‘thief’.
The Brownies also had to produce their own plays to show their friends how to stay safe, create a poster to discourage vandalism and complete a quiz to test their crime-busting knowledge.
Pack leader (Brown Owl) Judy McCallum said: “The officers’ visit was a real highlight: the girls loved them as they were fun as well as real. They were even presented with their badges by the boys in blue. Thank you all.”
Brownie parent, Annabel Maghie, added: “The hands-on activities really helped to get the crime prevention advice across so the Brownies will remember in future what to do in an emergency and how to keep themselves and their possessions safe. We are very lucky to live in such as safe area in a safe county but it is always helpful to know what to do if the unthinkable happens. They learned a lot and had lots of fun doing it.”
