Leadership and innovation earn Australasian Awards

Leadership and innovation are among the many qualities which earned two police members prestigious awards from the Australasian Council of Women and Policing (ACWP).

The ACWP Awards for Excellence in Policing are an opportunity to publicly acknowledge and reward the achievements of women and men significantly contributing to making policing and law enforcement better for women.

The ACWP aims to recognise developing excellence and that which currently exists in policing.

In early October, awards were presented to Inspector Janet Hope, Area Commander for Rodney, and Juanita Seymour, Intelligence Analyst, Bay of Plenty District Headquarters.

Juanita jointly won the most outstanding female practitioner award for her “innovative work in professionalising road policing intelligence and her willingness to share her knowledge with male colleagues”.

She says despite the award being a shock, it shows that both her, and other Intel sections, are heading in the right direction with their work.

Julia Jones, National Adviser: Intelligence & Performance, Road Policing Support, OoC, says Juanita’s contibution to road policing has been invaluable, particularly her innovative work in developing the ‘Beat Book’ for the Bay of Plenty (highlighted in Ten-One issue 258).

“This type of product is now considered to be ‘best practice’ and has been very influential in the ongoing development of a nationally consistent Risk Targeted Road Policing model,” says Julia.

Janet was nominated in the ‘most outstanding female leader’ category and received the ‘highly commended’ award for “proven leadership skills and abilities and for having made a real difference to women in the New Zealand Police”.

She says news of the award was a complete surprise as she didn’t know her District Commander, Superintendent Roger Carson, had nominated her.

“Now that I’ve had time to find out more about it, I realise it’s something quite substantial,” says Janet.

The fact it’s an Australasian award makes it pretty special.

“You just truck along and do the job, but it’s really nice to get the recognition. My own staff have acknowledged it as well and that’s important to me.”

The winner in Janet’s category was a superintendent from the Queensland Police with 31 years of distinguished service.