Jo Coles - York and North Yorkshire Deputy Mayor for Policing, Fire and Crime

Jo Coles - North Yorkshire Deputy Mayor for Policing, Fire and Crime

5 September, 2023

Zara’s blog

Zara in a red top standing against a wall.
Zara talks about her work experience with the Commissioner's office

Hi, I’m Zara, I am 17 and have been part of North Yorkshire Youth Commission (NYYC) for the last two years.

This blog is a little summary of my five-week work experience placement with the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner and what I learned.

As part of my college course, I needed to do a work experience placement. Seeing as I’m a member of NYYC and passionate about a possible career in the police after university, I was lucky to approach and be given the opportunity to do my work experience with the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s Office. I thought this work experience would give me a better understanding of policing which was not just operational.

Over a five-week period I did a work experience day each Thursday working from home, where I wrote up case studies for a selection of the office’s community fund projects. I found this interesting because I was able to see what is being done in my local area and further across the county to improve communities. I also got to work on the website page for the Youth Commission which included making profiles for this year’s current members. I enjoyed doing this task for my work experience because I got to do this face-to-face with the other members in the Youth Commission when we met in person.

The part I enjoyed the most was getting to see the work that I had produced over my work experience being published on their website. Writing isn’t one of my strong points but seeing my work on an official site helped me gain more confidence in my abilities.

Support was always provided to me throughout the whole duration via email and many MS Teams calls, but I appreciated I was allowed freedom in how I conducted and wrote the different tasks which again allowed me to gain more confidence through the weeks.

Overall, the experience has helped me understand more about the role of the Commissioner and all the amazing projects their office is working on, it really was a fantastic opportunity.

I would like to thank the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for having me.

You can find Zara’s work here: