16
POLICE WORLD
Vol 59 No. 4, 2014
Article
Auf wiedersehen
Two police officers from Section Germany spent a month in the UK as part of an International Learning &
Development Exchange Programme (ILDEP) placement. Lisa Mende and Vera Volmary spent the whole of July
with Nottinghamshire police - to gain an understanding of policing abroad and to share knowledge.
N
ottinghamshire IPA branch Chair, Gurmit
Kaur, acted as a mentor to Lisa and Vera,
creating a four-week programme for them
to learn about UK policing and partnership work in
in the county.
In only their second week the pair had gained
experience in a multitude of departments - they
had attachments to the control room, dog section,
intelligence. They experienced night time economy,
partnership work in the neighbourhood policing
team, ASB team, UDT training and joined the rapid
response community protection officers.
Gurmit said:
“It was a great month and an absolute
pleasure to have Vera and Lisa with us. They gave
us really good feedback and it has been beneficial
to the many teams who they have spent time with
to share their knowledge
and experience.”
Vera, who is a dog handler and has been in the
German Police for 14 years had always wanted to
visit the UK.
She said:
“I hope we can stay in contact and in the
future, it would be great to organise an exchange
programme for dog handlers to come and train
with us in Germany and see how we do things and
learn from each other.”
She explained that policing in Britain and Germany
were not too dissimilar however the process for
progression within the police differs considerably.
Much newer into policing, Lisa is very excited to
begin her career in Germany. She felt that her
experience during her time with Nottinghamshire
police gave her a good platform to learn and
progress from.
Lisa said:
“There isn’t much encouragement
for the public to come to the police and give us
information in Germany, so I was very impressed
with certain concepts like Crimestoppers…there is
no anonymity in Germany.”
Lisa was also impressed with deterrents such as
SmartWater and the preventative measures that
the force use to educate the public in how to
deter criminals.
Both Lisa and Vera jointly expressed their delight in
working with the force throughout their placement.
They said,
“We have had an amazing month and
it has been 100% worthwhile. We’ll definitely be
taking our experience back to Germany with us
– thank you to everyone for making our time in
Nottinghamshire so special – especially Gurmit,
who was the master of the operation!”
Before leaving the UK, they ended their
secondment by visiting the temporary Chief
Superintendent Steve Cooper.
Gurmit said,
“I was able to meet the request of the
areas of work the German officers asked for, but
the credit has to go to all the officers who assisted
in giving them the opportunity to learn about their
area of work – a big thank you to all of you involved
for making their time with us so valuable.”
Vera and Lisa had the opportunity to meet
Gaining experience on how
UK police conduct a search
Lisa (left) and Vera with
Nottinghamshire Police’s
Underwater Unit
