About Warwickshire Police
Warwickshire Police is committed to building trust and confidence within its communities through inclusive policing and continuous learning.
To strengthen communication with Deaf and hard of hearing people, the force sought specialist training to enhance awareness, improve accessibility, and equip officers with practical British Sign Language (BSL) skills.
Ann Chambers, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Learning and Development Officer, led the initiative to find a flexible and impactful training partner who understood the operational demands of policing.
Warwickshire Police wanted to increase Deaf awareness across its workforce while providing officers and staff with practical BSL skills.
The challenge was to design a training programme that:
- Worked around the unpredictable nature of policing shifts
- Included police-specific language and real-world examples
- Supported both internal inclusion and external community engagement
The goal was to enable officers to communicate more effectively with Deaf colleagues and community members, improving both workplace inclusion and public trust in policing.
Victoria delivered a flexible online learning programme designed specifically for the policing environment.
This included:
- A 10-week British Sign Language (BSL) programme, supporting a selected group of colleagues to build foundational BSL and Deaf awareness skills.
- A series of Power Hours (Lunch & Learn sessions) for the wider team, bite-sized, engaging training sessions designed to raise awareness and spark curiosity across their global workforce.
These sessions gave employees time to pause, learn, and reflect during their busy workdays, helping to embed inclusion into the company culture
“The process was simple and the team were brilliant to work with, flexible and understanding of our needs.”
— Ann Chambers, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Learning and Development Officer
The initiative supported Warwickshire Police’s wider ambitions to build inclusive services and foster better relationships through accessible communication.
“Victoria provided lots of learning about the Deaf community, strategies and advice on how best to communicate and support, as well as learning about BSL itself, how it is its own language and how signing differs to spoken sentences.”
— Ann Chambers
“The team are knowledgeable and so helpful. They work with organisations to identify their needs and offer lots of support in between.”
— Ann Chambers, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Learning and Development Officer, Warwickshire Police
“The virtual course allowed flexibility with work patterns and the operational demands of policing, while giving officers the skills to communicate more effectively with colleagues and our Deaf communities.”
— Ann Chambers
“This initiative supports our ambitions to build trust and confidence in policing through greater inclusion and better communication.”
— Ann Chambers
“Yes, this course was value for money and access to the learning dashboard allowed for greater flexibility for those participating.”
— Ann Chambers
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