Police communication not optional, says commissioner

Communication to the public is not an “optional extra” for The Barbados Police Service, the police commissioner said as a training workshop designed to strengthen police service communication and service excellence opened on Tuesday.

The two-day programme, the first-ever collaboration between the Regional Police Training Centre and the National Transformation Initiative (NTI), began at the District ‘A’ Complex at Station Hill, St Michael.

Commissioner of Police Sonia Boyce said communication was now a core part of modern policing and leadership.

“In modern policing, communication is not an optional extra; it is a core part of leadership,” she said. “Every day, what we say and how and when we say it shapes public trust. One press briefing, social media, or conversation at the scene of an incident can build confidence in the service or damage it.”

Boyce said information was now travelling rapidly, with citizens recording incidents on their phones and stories spreading before the facts were confirmed.

“If we do not tell our story clearly and responsibly, someone else will tell it for us, and often not correctly.

“As senior officers, we are the face and voice of this organisation. Your words carry authority, and so they carry responsibility.”

She noted that communication was also important within the service, affecting morale, performance and trust among officers.

“Good leaders do not just issue instructions; they explain the purpose, they listen to concerns, and they make sure the message is understood.”

Commissioner Boyce encouraged the officers to participate fully in the training, ask questions, share their experiences and be willing to step outside their comfort zones.

“Some of the exercises may take you out of your comfort zone. That is where growth happens,” she said.

National Transformation Initiative Director Dr Allyson Leacock said the agency’s contribution, the Art and Heart of Service programme, was based on the belief that good service went beyond transactions.

“Our programme is called the Art and Heart of Service because we believe that customer service can be transactional, but really great service, which we have all experienced at some point, is usually from the heart,” she said.

NTI was established in 2020 as part of the Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Programme, with the comprehensive retooling of the Barbadian workforce among its areas of focus.

She said The Barbados Police Service was an essential part of that work because officers represent the country’s diversity.

The training consists of four modules covering culture and transformation, disability etiquette, deportment, personal branding and communication, and ethics and integrity.

Dr Leacock described ethics and integrity as “the anchor that predicts how each of us behaves every single day when nobody is looking” and said the sessions were designed to be interactive.

“We focus on mindset before skill set, because we have recognised that we are pretty good at getting our certificates and learning what is required in the classroom, but the application when the pressure hits us, the application when things don’t run smoothly, those are the things that determine the basis of our character.”

She also urged the Police Service to embrace digital technology, expressing the hope that digital literacy and eventually digital fluency would become part of the constabulary.

“I know we are all very wedded to hard black and blue books in the public service. I know that we love our paper, but the world is going digital, and we cannot be left behind.”

Regional Police Training Centre Commandant Roderic Walcott said the programme was responding to changing public expectations.

“We are all part of the transformational policing approach, which is more practicable and suitable for today’s society,” he said. “We are now policing a public who expect more interaction and communication from us.”

He said the ability to exchange information, whether providing an update from a crime scene or traffic collision or addressing public service and security matters, was now of critical importance.

“This two-day programme aims to combine service excellence and practical communication training for the senior command team, senior investigating officers, as well as selected inspectors and station sergeants.”

The NTI will deliver the Art of Service module first, followed by a combined communication training workshop with experts in customer service and communication, Commandant Walcott said. (LG)