Today, 16 Protective Security Officers (PSO) graduated from a nine-week course at the South Australia Police Academy. This is the last group of PSOs to graduate as part of the additional 114 PSOs assisting with SAPOL’s frontline defence response to COVID-19.
The 16 members on today’s graduating course are aged between 19 – 36 years old.
One of the graduating PSOs is Vincenzo, who joins SAPOL with a broad range of experiences. This includes being a former member of the Italian Navy, Retail Manager for Tony & Marks for five years and a speaker of both Italian and English.
Giving back to the community of South Australia was a motivating reason behind Vincenzo applying to join SAPOL. He found the course experience challenging but he comes away from it with a broad range of knowledge and skills and is looking forward to being amongst the community as part of his duties.
Another graduate is Suresh, who was born and raised in India. Following his passion, Suresh became a chef, which included working on a cruise ship where he travelled the world. He then moved to Adelaide with his wife to start a family. An experienced cricket player, Suresh joined a Scott Creek Ironbank team that would go on to win a championship. For seven years, Suresh would continue working as a chef until he decided that he needed a career change to challenge him further. It was then that he took the opportunity to apply for a PSO role, driven by the desire to have a career that would be challenging and rewarding.
Suresh found the PSO training challenging to complete, particularly with a young family to raise. However, Suresh enjoyed studying, making new friends and particularly the practical exercises. Suresh is excited about applying his training to the job.
Vincenzo, Suresh and their fellow graduating PSOs will start on COVID-19 duties, initially undertaking medi-hotel compliance duties by staffing security desks and controlling access to quarantine facilities, allowing some of SAPOL’s frontline police officers to return to their usual roles. In addition, the PSOs will operate security equipment, monitor CCTV, undertake foot patrols around the medi-hotel perimeter, as well as monitor and report on the movement of guests to and from the quarantine facility.
SAPOL are always recruiting and offer more than 40 career options, including working as a Police Officer, Protective Security Officer or Community Constable.
For any information about a Police Officer or PSO role, please visit https://www.police.sa.gov.au/join-us
Today’s graduation took place in accordance with the COVID-19 Directions Activities.
Image above: Suresh and Vincenzo
