Dozens of young people are taking part in a police-led development initiative designed to build discipline and life skills as part of a drive to steer at-risk youth towards education and jobs.
Sergeant Roger Williams, team coordinator for the King’s Trust International Programme within the Community Policing Department of the Barbados Police Service, said the current cohort of 56 young people is undergoing a series of physically and mentally demanding activities designed to build resilience and life skills.
At a training session held on Wednesday at the Regional Police Training Centre in Paragon, Christ Church, Williams told reporters that participants had begun the week at the Coast Guard, where they underwent survival drills at sea, and were now completing an obstacle course, with a hike scheduled for Thursday.
The activities form part of the residential component of the programme, aimed at pushing participants beyond their comfort zones, she said.
“The obstacle course is really designed to push participants a bit, to build mental strength, resilience, and teamwork is vital to completing the obstacle,” he said. “So these are the skills that we want participants to develop as they pass through residential week, which will serve them well as they move out of the programme into finding meaningful employment or going back to study in some form at the tertiary level.”
The King’s Trust International Team Programme targets young people aged between 16 and 25 and focuses on personal development, employability and social responsibility. Globally, the initiative has claimed a 75 per cent success rate of positive outcomes, including participants gaining employment, returning to education, becoming apprentices or volunteering in their communities.
Williams noted that the Barbados programme continues to show tangible results.
“This cohort, from my recollection, is cohort 56, and so far there have been 776 participants passing through the King’s Trust International team programme. We have had 13 to date participants actually joining the ranks of the Barbados Police Service, and at present, to my knowledge, there are three participants who recently completed previous cohorts who are now going through the initial training at the regional police training centre.”
The programme was introduced locally in 2016 as a pilot initiative and was formally launched the following month. The then Royal Barbados Police Force became the first delivery partner outside England and Wales to host the programme, working with King’s Trust International to implement the model here .
According to Williams, the initiative plays a critical role in the island’s wider intervention strategy aimed at steering young people away from crime and negative influences.
Within the 12-week structure, participants engage in community projects, classroom sessions and work placements designed to expose them to potential career paths while strengthening key life skills.
“We target a number of skills like self-confidence, building confidence because self-esteem and self-confidence is a big boost in terms of these individuals finding themselves. We go into working with others, which is teamwork. There are leadership skills which we want to bring out, job search skills, setting and achieving goals and managing your feelings.”
He said these elements help prepare participants for the transition into employment or further education.
The programme also relies heavily on community outreach to identify young people who may benefit from the opportunity.
“From a community perspective we encourage our community officers to identify those persons while they’re traversing communities and stuff to bring those persons and encourage those persons to join the programme,” Williams said.
He added that former participants often become ambassadors for the initiative, recommending friends or relatives after witnessing the personal transformation it can deliver.
Williams stressed that the programme does not target only troubled youth but welcomes participants from a wide cross-section of society.
“We deem everyone to be at risk from the perspective where they’re out there, so it’s not necessarily where we only target persons who may be deviant,” he explained. “We have persons from all walks of life because it’s a self-development course.”
For Williams, the most rewarding aspect remains seeing young people redirect their lives after completing the programme.
“Those are the stories that I cherish most, where I see those who have come from those delinquent backgrounds and they are actually on the right path and doing good things within society,” he said.
He believes placing young people in positive environments can significantly influence their future.
“Environment is everything,” Williams said. “If we can get most of our young persons doing positive things and in positive environments, this can have a major factor in terms of turning their lives around and getting them on the right track.”
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