Police donate to two charities

Guernsey Police has donated £8,686.06 to two local charities, using money raised at the organisation’s centenary ball which was held last month.

Autism Guernsey and Guernsey Mind were chosen to receive £4343.03 each as they are both charities Guernsey Police has a close working relationship with.

Among other pieces of joint working, Guernsey Police and Autism Guernsey have worked closely together to develop the Autism Passport Scheme, while Guernsey Mind help deliver specialist training to officers on sensitive issues linked to mental health.

The centenary ball actually took place in the 104th year of Guernsey Police’s history, after initial plans were stalled because of the pandemic, however it was attended by current, previous and retired officers and many other members of the policing community, all of whom came together to celebrate the work of Guernsey Police.

Guernsey Police would like to take this opportunity to thank both of these organisations for their ongoing hard work to support vulnerable areas of the community, and hope the donations support them in doing so.

Amanda Hibbs, Guernsey Mind, said:

“Guernsey Mind are extremely grateful for this generous donation. As a mental health charity, this support will make a real difference in our work to promote mental wellbeing across the Bailiwick. We have been working closely with Bailiwick Law Enforcement as part of our Workplace Partnership programme, as well as supporting members of the Blue Light Services through our recent Responding to Suicide Training. Alongside this, we have launched Supported Self-Help – an early intervention service which uses guided tools to support mental wellbeing. This donation will truly make a difference in helping us develop future training and support programmes.”

Martine Ellis, Autism Guernsey, said:

“One of Autism Guernsey’s current strategic aims is increasing our efforts to educate both the Guernsey community and local corporate organisations about autism. We want to invest in that education offer by upgrading the equipment in our training room, offering webinars, and creating new teaching resources by getting some new software, and we are going to be able to do that with this significant chunk of money we’ve been so generously given. Our 2 ultimate goal is to create a massive pool of locally generated, bespoke resources that we can offer the community. This donation will help us take a serious step in that direction. We are very grateful.”