Central welcomes its new safety officer
After seven years Central Taranaki’s community safety officer has left her role as well as her legacy.
Dalwyn Smart has handed over her co-ordinating role in the Community Safe Trust to Midhurst-based Di Welch who will be the third to ever hold this role.
Danny Bates, the chairman of the trust, said in the years Smart had been the safety officer she’d been brilliant.
‘‘The trust certainly wouldn’t be where it is today without Dalwyn’s work ethic and community focus,’’ he said.
Bates said despite the emotional farewell to Smart, there were arms open wide for Welch.
‘‘She lives in Midhurst so she’s a local girl on the ground and knows the community very well,’’ he said.
‘‘She’ll be fantastic.’’
The Central Taranaki Community Safe Trust has been running for nine years, assuring neighbourhood support and home safety for large portions of Central Taranaki.
It was formed from left-over funding from a Home Safety Project that involved the installation of smoke alarms, and has run as a ‘‘what we make we spend, non profit drive’’ ever since.
Welch will take on all of Smart’s previous duties, which involve co-ordination with communities, the trust itself and police.
In the safety officer role she will be stationed in the police office and work with them for neighbourhood support services, as Bates explained, ‘‘holding peoples hands if they’ve had a bad experience’’.
She will also work alongside Community Patrols New Zealand organising the volunteers who man the cameras and community car on a Friday and Saturday night.
’’It’s a diverse role, it’s not just a clock in clock out job,’’ Bates said.
He said a standout point with Smart was three years ago when she was the project manager and co-ordinated parts of the homesafety project.
‘‘We did a needs assessment on every house in Central Taranaki. And gave out a step ladder, or whatever it may be, to reduce risk,’’ Bates said.
The trust currently has 1000 volunteers and the new ‘‘face of the trust’’, Welch, will man them from now on.