Firstly ‘Happy New Year’ to each of you as we launch into this new chapter with Police Chaplaincy UK.

This week PCUK Chair Dom Jones and I met with Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth at the College of Policing (CoP) where DCC Blyth is now in post as the College’s Deputy CEO. Maggie remains our National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead and very much an advocate for all that you do in Chaplaincy.

I wanted to take a few minutes to share a little bit about what coming up in the next few months, a bit about me, and to say a few ‘thank yous’.

‘Thank you’ to Dom Jones.

Many of you will know that by day, our PCUK Chair Dom, is also the Lead Chaplain to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary. Dom has operated as the interim National Police Chaplain (NPC) since David Wilbraham left the post last year and has also led on securing the post of the new NPC with the NPCC which is the highest level within policing, along with the recruitment for the post. Dom, on behalf of the board and all the Chaplains from across policing, we want to thank you for your dedication and persistence in getting the NPC post secured at NPCC level, and for all your efforts over the recent month whilst holding the NPC post. We all very much appreciate what you have done.

Another ‘thank you’ to each of you!

‘Thank you’ to those who have been active over the Christmas and New Year period. It can be a strange time of the year for many officers and staff as they juggle work, home life and all the societal issues that seem to be magnified over this period. I am positive that your encouragement and presence will have made a positive impact. We know that there is a personal commitment from you to be present at these precious times, but it’s not gone unnoticed.

A bit about me...

I’m really pleased to have officially started this week as the NPC. As a way of a bit of an intro, I have been involved with Police Chaplaincy for over 12 years. I started out as a Volunteer with West Midlands Police and then went onto lead the Chaplaincy team at Warwickshire. For those who have made it to any of the conferences over recent years, we may well have met, or indeed on some of those PCUK zoom calls back in Covid!

I have been on staff at an Assemblies of God (AoG) Church in Birmingham, now called Trinity Church, also for 12 years. Although I have left that staff team, I will still be involved as a Pastor on a lesser scale, supporting the senior leaders with preaching and leading services as required. I’m married to Donna and we have three children. Two sons, who have finished in education, and a daughter who is in her GCSE exams year! We still live in Birmingham and are blessed to have a great friendship circle around us who cheer us on in both of our ministries and pray for us too.

So what’s in store for this new chapter?

I have presented a 3 year vision plan to the NPCC, PCUK board of trustees, and to the lead Chaplains at our gathering last year. It is called our ‘3D Mission’ and I’m looking forward to sharing more about the details of that in the coming months. The top line information for us all for now, is there are three stages that we will move through over the coming three years.

For this first 12 months, we will work to DEVELOP chaplaincy. This we come from understanding where each force is at with their chaplaincy provision. This will mean that I will get to come and meet with many of you at your respective forces, along with your lead chaplains and stakeholder senior officer. As PCUK gather a greater understanding of the width and breadth of our provision, we can then develop tools, ways of working, and good practice that will help us collectively increase our abilities to serve those we care for.

Year two will be the DELIVER year, where the good practices and initiatives identified, or the new tools and processes required can be rolled out. Year three leads us to DEEPEN what we had identified and delivered on. In year three we will evaluate how deep the routes are of what we have delivered ensuring they can continue to grow. It will be a year of evaluation too, where we can demonstrate the advances we have collectively made as we strive to serve the officers, staff and volunteers of our forces.

In the coming weeks you will start to hear about the engagement within the College and at NPCC level as we also strive to imbed Chaplaincy long term into the heart of policing. Likewise, there will be communications sent out to all Chief Officers as we engage from the top too.

Lastly, please keep a look out for further communications from PCUK about this year’s training conference. It is set to be a brilliant time together.

Looking forward to serving alongside you as we press on with bringing Chaplaincy to the heart of Policing.

Matthew