Suki Randhawa

My journey into policing started whilst I was at school, and I had the opportunity to do two weeks work experience with Kent Police. I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of different roles within policing, learning that every day was a different day with different challenges.

After leaving college my career took me on a different route from policing and I decided to progress with my telecommunications business. At the time I was running my business, I was also very active with community engagement in North Kent. During this time a terrible incident occurred in South East London, the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I was approached by the local chief inspector to deliver some diversity training for local officers in Gravesham and Dartford, which I did. The training was very much appreciated by the officers who hadn’t had the opportunity to understand black and Asian culture before. This continued for several months and was also rolled out to other forces via NPIA (National Police Improvement Agency) now known as College of Policing.

In the late 1990’s and 2000’s, I was heavily involved in organising large community festivals and I always made sure that Kent Police were represented at these events. I wanted to see people who look like me working for Kent Police as police officers and I knew that having black and Asian officers would help build trust and confidence in policing here in Kent.

My journey took a different route after my partner, and I had baby twins. I wanted to spend more time with them and so I sold my telecommunication business and decided to do more community related roles. I worked for KCC Youth Service and then worked at North West Kent College as a tutor. Whilst teaching at the college, Kent Police had put out a job advertisement for a diversity trainer. I wasted no time and applied for the role as my passion is working for the police and teaching in diversity and inclusion. I was successful in getting the role in 2009 and this was my new beginning in policing as a police staff member.

I still love going into the classroom to teach new or existing officers and staff about diversity and inclusion topics. When I first started, I was the only police staff member from a minority background which I feel benefitted new student officers in their training as I could bring a different perspective, especially in role play scenarios. I was awarded QTLS (Qualified Teacher Learning Status) by Canterbury University during my time as a trainer.

In 2017 I was promoted to Kent & Essex Diversity Co-ordinator for both forces, which was a very challenging role. During this time the government set a new initiative to recruit 20,000 new police officers. I was required to deliver on the Positive Action role for the force to recruit officers from black and Asian communities. I really enjoyed doing the Positive Action role and I had the opportunity to do TV/radio interviews, organise recruitment events at Bluewater Shopping Centre, design a Positive Action Programme and deliver one-to-one workshops. This role gave me the skills to work with a variety of departments within Kent Police, from marketing to occupational health and I really enjoyed it. I was personally thanked by the chief constable on this work as he could clearly see it was making a difference to the force. As a result, I was nominated and won the ‘Quality of Service Champion of the Year’ award.

In 2020 the force developed the Diversity and Inclusion Academy, and I was asked to deliver on community engagement. I had the responsibility to manage 14 community liaison officers across Kent. This was a challenging role; however, I learnt a lot about managing people and delivering on a number of key priorities for the force such as the race action plan, violence against women and girls, recruitment, monitoring community tensions, hate crime and the prevent strategy.

I have now gone back to my Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator role which means I will get to oversee several projects for the force on Diversity and Inclusion. Currently we have just joined the top 50 inclusive companies to benchmark our work in this field.

Black History (BHM) is a time when we celebrate the importance of black and Asian contribution to the UK. A time when we reflect on role models who have paved the way for other black and Asian individuals to follow their dreams and change the narrative that we can do those roles as well. Recently, seeing the first ever Asian prime minister for the UK leading this country, I hope will encourage more black and Asian people to go for those high-profile roles and not think that they cannot do it because of the colour of their skin.

I got involved in our staff support group Race Equality Network (REN) as soon as I joined Kent Police, I already knew about the work they were doing to increase representation for the force. I joined as an executive member and have been active since 2009 in maintaining, supporting and building the staff group. I am lucky enough to have organised numerous BHM events for Kent Police over the last 14 years and have seen the great work my colleagues from black and Asian background are doing in UK policing. We need more senior leaders from these backgrounds to really reflect the communities we are serving as the population landscape changes.

What I like about BHM is that we get to see and hear amazing stories from our colleagues and partners on what they have achieved and what contribution they make to the wider communities. For example, when places of worship come together to feed the homeless in Kent, it doesn’t matter what colour skin you have, we are all human first. We should be celebrating this all year round.