Lessons Learned The journey from the proposal of the PEQF in 2016, to having more than 1200 student officers on new programmes across the West Midlands region in November 2020 has been immense and greatly significant. It has required enormous input, negotiation and agreement from a great number of people who have, in turn, developed strong and effective working relationships between the Partners. In addition, it has brought about significant cultural change and new ways of working for all members of the Partnership. Be in no doubt that this was a major undertaking and has been a massive achievement. There are, of course, several things that have been learned along the way, which are worth sharing here: 1. Involve the right people from the outset – in such a large undertaking this is everyone. Whilst assignment and delegation of activities is necessary, people at all levels and functions of each organisation need to be informed and engaged in the developments, from Chief Constable to Police Constable, from Vice Chancellor to Admin Officer. Even if they are not part of it initially, there will be a time when they are needed and will need to be up-to-date and engaged so they can play their part. Also, reduce the length of lines of reporting so that messages at both the strategic and operational levels do not get lost in translation or adapted to an individual’s own interpretation.
2. Prioritise partnership development When large organisations begin to work together, they each bring their own culture, reticence and preconceptions. All of these can make the early stages difficult and challenging. Investment in the development of interpersonal relationships, even if these need to be carefully managed, pays dividends in the long run.
3. Don’t be afraid to innovate For us, it would have been very easy to take the old course and adapt it into a shape that fitted the expectations of the College of Policing. However, we collectively took the opportunity to change the way in which police education and training is undertaken in the West Midlands region, with an emphasis on transferring knowledge to practice, and the use of blended learning throughout the learning journey. Not only has this produced a much better product in terms of its quality and flexibility, but also allowed us to adapt easily by moving fully online when the COVID lockdown was imposed in March 2020.
4. Communicate Clearly from Day One Due to the enormous amount of activity involved in setting up the partnership and developing courses for implementation in around 8 months and then intensively writing and delivering learning materials once the courses launched, the feedback on developments and evaluation processes was not communicated effectively with all involved. This resulted in some perceived gaps in progress and success, causing larger issues to develop. Once these had been identified it was easy enough to come up with a solution, but a clear communication process would have allowed much quicker resolutions to be found and prevented many issues from arising.
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