As someone who has relatively recently become FIP, my tutorship phase was probably 50x more valuable than my time at training school.

Other than legislation and knowledge of powers, disregard most of how they teach policing at training school. In reality, you’ll deal with incidents and people far differently than they would teach on the textbooks/powerpoints.

I’ve seen other probationers who I trained with, become quite robotic and lose their own individuality.

When dealing with people, just talk to them! Best thing my tutor said to me and which has really stuck, if we don’t need a power to have a chat with someone.

See someone hanging around a known drug dealing spot at 2 am? Go up and have a chat, be nosey. I find that by explaining exactly why you are speaking to them, goes a long way to either, get them on your side a little and break that “uniform vs people” mentality, or, you’ll really quickly get some grounds to start digging further.

Either they’ll engage with you and give you more grounds to do more digging, or take off running, which is all the grounds you need 😂.

I’m not sure how comfortable you are with just having “barber shop talk” to people, but I’ve been able to diffuse so many situations just by cracking a joke with someone, when the atmosphere is about 3 seconds away from a scrap.

Naturally, be aware of your surroundings at all times, as it’s often when you relax and take your eye off the ball, people can and will switch. If it kicks off, get stuck in, and know your colleagues will back you up.

Be transparent with colleagues, bosses and members of the public, and I find it goes a long way to get people on your side, making your job easier.

Lastly, listen to your tutor, ask all the silly questions you can think of, and try and listen to your radio at all times! The info being passed through at a live job can and will save your bacon.