Our guest speaker at the May Supper Meeting was WPC Kath Blythe. She gave us a very informative talk on her work with the Surrey Police force.
Kath outlined how different things were in 1984 when she first joined the force – it was definitely a man’s world with WPCs confined to restrictive duties in the police station and nothing in the way of flexi-time or career breaks to accommodate the needs of a working mother. When her children were born Kath had to leave the police force because the combination of family and career became unworkable.
Later Kath was invited to rejoin the force as part of the specialist team handling domestic violence incidents and then she went on to work in the Child Protection unit. Today she operates out of Addlestone and is a Risk Management Officer working with sex offenders in the community. Kath works in partnership with other local government agencies specialising in probation, mental health and children’s services. Part of her training has involved looking at the psychological aspects of offenders’ behaviour.
She has been in her current role for the last eight to nine years and her office now manages over 100 offenders in Elmbridge, Spelthorne and Runnymede; work which Kath passionately feels makes a difference in protecting children. Offenders are managed in the community under risk assessment plans drawn up under the auspices of MAPPA (Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement) by the multi-agency teams of which Kath’s team is a part. The primary aim is t to try and rehabilitate offenders to prevent further offending.