Derbyshire’s specialist child exploitation charity Safe and Sound has piloted a new on-demand security service for its support workers and outreach teams.
Safe and Sound support young people and families across the county whose lives have been affected by child exploitation including online grooming, sexual exploitation, County Lines, trafficking, modern slavery and radicalisation.
Meanwhile, outreach workers and volunteers from the Derby-based charity are a regular and visible evening presence both in Derby city centre and in South Derbyshire. Their objective is to raise awareness of young people around grooming and exploitation, provide reassurance around community safety and gain the views of young people about services and support they needed to feel safer.
The team has been trialling ‘My Own Cop’, the new app-based alert system which has been developed by Steve Rimmington, a former police officer who founded Derby-based Repton Security in 2004.
Mr Rimmington explained: “The nature of policing has changed completely over the past two decades decades for many reasons and I know from speaking to former colleagues and with my 20 years’ experience in the security industry that there is now an increasing need for on-demand security and support.
“Myowncop.com is an app-based alert system which is particularly important for lone workers and small teams who need back up quickly and efficiently.
“Having successfully trialled this locally over the last year, with Repton Security providing the response, we now intend to roll this out across the UK and hopefully overseas by partnering with reputable security companies in each location.
“I have supported Safe and Sound in different ways over the years so I am delighted that they have come on board with My Own Cop to provide additional support for the workers and volunteers who do such a valuable job in our local communities.”
Safe and Sound CEO Tracy Harrison continued: “Although we already have robust safeguarding in place for our support and outreach team members, I was keen to have another layer of security in place for them.
“My Own Cop is a great idea and provides additional support and reassurance for staff in a wide range of roles.”