At Norfolk Police we know that most children and young people in the county are not involved with crime or anti social behaviour. Most young people in Norfolk behave well and many already help out in their communities.

We think it is important that all children and young people stay as safe as possible and get the right information at the right time to help them to make good choices in their lives.

However, if a young person gets involved with crime or anti social behaviour, we believe that it is important that they are dealt with as quickly and fairly as possible. Sometimes this might mean getting people to realise what they are doing is wrong through education. At other times it might mean keeping a particular check on a young person or putting them somewhere where they can't cause any more trouble to other people for a while.

When the police work with young people is not just about working with young people who are in to trouble with the law, it's about making sure that risks are reduced for everyone so people don't get harmed.

Being responsible for children and young people's issues means that I am responsible for finding the bests ways for Norfolk Police to help all children and young people in Norfolk, whether they get in to trouble with the law or not.

It is my job to:

• Learn as much as I can about the issues affecting children and young people.

• Share what I learn with other police officers and people who work at Norfolk Police so that we can continue to improve how we do things.

• Work with other organisations such as schools, Connexions, Youth Offending Teams (and many others) to make sure we are all cooperating and doing the best we can for children and young people in the county.

The first thing I had to do when I started in this job was to look at how we deal with children and young people in Norfolk at various times in their lives. I spoke to lots of people including some young people. We then wrote a Children and Young People's Strategy.

The strategy is simply a document which explains how Norfolk Police will work with children and young people.

(You can see the key points of the strategy here on the website or read the whole document if you are interested in finding out more).

Now that the strategy is written I'm working with some of the police officers who go in to schools and work directly with young people to make sure they have the right training and equipment to do their jobs.

I'm continuing to work with schools, Connexions, Youth Offending teams and others to make sure we keep improving the ways in which we work together.

I'm also helping to get more information up on to this website!

I have worked as a police officer for over 21 years. As you can imagine, I've worked with a lot of people of all different ages and from many different backgrounds.

Also working with me I have Natalie Lake, she is the Children and Young People's Dvelopment Officer and Michele Eager, Safer Schools PArtnership Administrator. They both have wide experience of working with Children and Young People.

If you have a question for Chris about our work with children and young people you can contact him by email and he will get back to you as quickly as he can.

youthinspector@norfolk.pnn.police.uk

This email should not be used in an emergency...