The Home Office, in consultation with the Neighbourhood Watch movement and Police Forces around the country, have re-designed, updated and expanded existing outdated Neighbourhood Watch training materials.

To make the modules more suitable for direct access by Neighbourhood Watch members and staff working with Neighbourhood Watch it is now available on the internet at the following Home Office website address.

The materials retain the basic elements about what is Neighbourhood Watch, how to join and what should/would be done. It now runs to thirteen modules. A further three modules on anti-social behaviour, problem-solving and making the links between Neighbourhood Policing and Neighbourhood Watch will be available soon.

Because the modules are only available on the internet, they have been made down-loadable so they may be printed off for those without a computer. It is hoped Neighbourhood Watch members, and police staff working with Neighbourhood Watch, will dip in and out of these modules as the need arises.

Skills Scan, Knowledge Check and Personal Development Plan for Staff
It is apparent from the Neighbourhood Watch based questionnaire to all Forces, which took place two years ago, that there was a thirst for training of Police staff to be standardised. However, research with Forces shows that paid staff (or indeed unpaid volunteers working for the Police or other organisations, with NHW members) perform a huge range of tasks from the very simple to the complex.

Because of the disparity between what Forces do and how they interact with Neighbourhood Watch, it is not easily possible to develop a “one size fits all” for training. Consequently, a skills scan and knowledge check, plus a link to an individual’s Personal Development Plan (PDP) have been developed and is available here in Word format or Acrobat (pdf)

Community Officers working on Neighbourhood Policing teams can also use this document to assess skills, and development needs, in relation to other similar aspects of their work.