Last week our speaker was Commander Barry Vincent of Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Local Area Command who, as he told us, is responsible for the police stations at Gordon and Hornsby and the Community and Road Education Centre (C.A.R.E.S.) facility on Mona Vale Road, St Ives. This makes him directly responsible for 171 personnel. Their well-being and mental health care was a specific concern for a number of questioners from our Club this morning.
Ashleigh Ho, Commander Barry Vincent, Fiona Zhou, President Janelle and Jessica Blaxland Ashby
Click on "Read More" below to recap on further material presented by Barry and his colleague Fiona Zhou and Jessica Blaxland Ashby (Marian St Theatre).
Contd:
The Commander gave us a brief run-down on his career, starting as an eager 20-year-old just out of the Police Academy at Goulburn and learning his job in challenging centres in the western suburbs and at St Mary’s before coming to the Hornsby Ku-ring-gai LAC. He also elaborated on the particular challenges for the police during the COVID-19 lockdown and subsequently the ways in which they had to adapt to the new social distancing conditions. We were troubled to learn that the increase in domestic violence during lockdown was to a significant extent due to a rise in assaults by teenagers forced to remain in their homes without any of their usual outlets such as socialising with friends and taking part in sport or social activities. Commander Vincent said it illustrated the importance of PCYC and of youth arts programmes like the Marian Street Theatre for Young People (MSTYP), who were also at the meeting this morning.
We also heard from Fiona Zhou, a civilian employed by the police force as Multicultural Community Liaison Officer to build connections for the police with the culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community in Hornsby Ku-ring-gai. Fiona was delightful, praising and handing over her ‘Head ‘n Tails’ bottle of wine win to Janelle for her contribution to community life. Her roles include assisting police with individual cases, language assistance but NOT as the professional interpreter, victim support, organizing community safety talks and partnership programs to address community issues. She declared her keenness for any opportunities for promoting police services, safety & crime prevention information to CALD groups and any support she might be able to provide e.g. connecting individuals or services to the Youth project MSTFYP has been doing.”
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Jessica Blaxland-Ashby, General Manager of the Marian Street Theatre for Young People brought along Ashleigh Ho, a recipient of vocational training assistance from our Youth Committee. Ashleigh, thanks to her training, is now a professional stage manager and is for the first time trying her hand as Assistant Director for The Red Dust, an Australian-Chinese adaptation of a traditional tale from China, but set locally, which will have a 4-performance run at the Concourse in Chatswood on Wednesday 22 & Thursday 23 September and then hopefully go on tour.
Some of us were disappointed that contestants on Zoom failed to win ‘Heads ‘n Tails’, which was in no way due to our heroic managers of on-line communication, Len Stanley and Simran Talwar, who were ready for the challenge of having the fine box handed round by virtual participants.