Job Shadowing a Police Officer

Hey guys, as most of you should know November 6th was “Take Your Kid To Work” day and I decided to go with my dad to his work, he’s a police officer for the VPD. However, before we get too far into the story I will be talking about the different competencies that were assigned for this project and how they were shown in my father’s work place. I have also created a video that helps show these competencies using interviews that I got with my dad’s colleagues you can watch it up above. My friend Paige’s dad is also a police officer at the department so we decided to go to the day together so we wouldn’t be lonely. Once we had arrived at the detective office, there’s different buildings for each part of the force, Paige’s dad showed us around the offices that the detectives worked at and we were able to meet some of his colleagues. Right away I could tell that you had to have a certain type of personality to be on the force because of all the things you have to see and do. Most of the officers there were very extroverted and made jokes with their colleagues while also being as professional as possible. This idea that you need a certain type of personality to be on the force can apply to any job, as in you would need a different personality to be an accountant than if you were going to be a plumber. I believe this shows the first competency: Question self and others about how individual purposes and passions can support the needs of the local and global community when considering career choices. This is because your individual passions can lead you to picking your work that will ultimately help society.

Once we had walked around the office all of the kids were taken to the conference room and were given many different interesting talks. They were about how your attitude has to be if you want to be part of the force, summer programs for grade 10’s and up, the forensic team, and the ERT, the ERT is basically the VPD’s SWAT team. The reason I mention these talks is that I feel like they contribute to the second competency: Recognize the impact of personal public identity in the world of work. I feel this way because most of the different programs had professionally shot and edited videos to show how great they are so more people will join. Which ultimately shows that they need to show a positive personal public identity so more people will participate in their programs and want to be part of the force. I also saw this competency when we visited the different specialty departments of the VPD which are the Dog Squad, the Mounted Police, the Marine Squad, and the Training Facility. I think that these departments contribute to this competency because they are all kept in the best shape possible for, first of all, functionality and also the public perception of the VPD. They’ve got to keep these departments looking good or the public perception of the police could switch from the people who help keep us safe to dirty slobs that can’t do anything which could mean a lot more resistance of the olives efforts to lower crime.

The last thing that I noticed is that when we went to all these different departments they all told us and maybe even showed us how they would use their expertise in the field. At the Dog Squad we got to see one of the dogs bit the protected arm of another officer to show what would happen if a criminal was on the run. At the mounted Police they told us about how they use the horses to patrol Stanley park and how they are used as crowd control. At the Marine Squad we got to ride in the actual boats that they would use to respond to calls on the water. At the Training Facility we got to see how both the guns and tasers the police use worked and when and how they would use them. The reason I mention this is that it shows the third and final competency: Recognize and explore diverse perspectives on how work contributes to our communities and society. These explanations of the different ways they would use their expertise in the field were showing how their work contributed to society by fighting crime and fulfilling other duties required of their work.

In conclusion, although I was able to specifically show how each competency related to my personal Take Your Kid To Work Day experience that doesn’t mean that they don’t apply to any other job. Each one of these competencies apply to different aspects of work in general and I believe that if you are working at a job no matter how small you should always be thinking about these competencies and how you can use them to improve your experience working at that job.