Wednesday, 28 February 2024

National Chaplain Commissioned

The National Chaplain for Police Chaplaincy UK & the National Police Chiefs Council was commissioned during a service attended by over 200 people on Saturday 24^th Feb.

Dignitaries including The Deputy Lieutenant, Sir David Thompson and the High Sherriff, Chaplains from across UK policing and senior police officers gathered at ‘Trinity @ Birmingham’ Church to formally welcome The Reverend Matthew Hopley into his new role.

Police chaplaincy UK’s vision is ‘Bringing Chaplaincy to the heart of policing’. Our multifaith chaplains do this through building relationships with officers, staff and volunteers in various ways, Chaplains have the privilege to walk alongside people during the most difficult times of life and service and walk with them in times of celebration. The commissioning of the new National Chaplains marked a new chapter in the story of police chaplaincy.

The commissioning began with the Chair of Police Chaplaincy UK, Rev’d Dom Jones giving the Charge to Matt.

Chaplains are called to be servants and shepherds among the people to whom they are sent this Charge sets out the formal expectations of what you Matt, the National Police Chaplain is expected to do, and how you will conduct yourself

After which Chaplains from different faiths and all those gathered came forward in an act of Unity to light a candle forming a heart, representing the love and care chaplains show to those they serve.

The service featured hymns and songs played by the West Midlands Police Brass Band and the church worship team.

As the service progressed the Chief Constable of Matt’s sending Force spoke enthusiastically about the support Matt had given her and her officers whist he was Lead Chaplain in Warwickshire police and finally before Matt formally accepted the role the National Police Chiefs Council Lead for Chaplaincy, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth received Matt into the role.

The National Police Chiefs' Council, and Police Chaplaincy UK are pleased to confirm that after the thorough recruitment process, subsequent eligibility checks, that Reverend Matthew Hopley has accepted and commenced the post.

On behalf of the NPCC and College of Policing I am delighted to received Rev Hopley (Matt) as our new National Police Chaplain. I know that he will support our policing code of ethics and help us serve our communities with courage.

The service concluded with the police prayer and cake was served for all to enjoy afterwards.

Tags:

Welcome Police Chaplaincy Matthew Hopley National Police Chief's Council National Police Chaplain

Police Chaplaincy UK

1051 Hits

Friday, 12 January 2024

New Year, New Chapter

Dom Jones

New year, New Chapter.

Firstly ‘Happy New Year’ to each of you as we launch into this new chapter with Police Chaplaincy UK.

This week PCUK Chair Dom Jones and I met with Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth at the College of Policing (CoP) where DCC Blyth is now in post as the College’s Deputy CEO. Maggie remains our National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) lead and very much an advocate for all that you do in Chaplaincy.

I wanted to take a few minutes to share a little bit about what coming up in the next few months, a bit about me, and to say a few ‘thank yous’.

‘Thank you’ to Dom Jones.

Many of you will know that by day, our PCUK Chair Dom, is also the Lead Chaplain to Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary. Dom has operated as the interim National Police Chaplain (NPC) since David Wilbraham left the post last year and has also led on securing the post of the new NPC with the NPCC which is the highest level within policing, along with the recruitment for the post. Dom, on behalf of the board and all the Chaplains from across policing, we want to thank you for your dedication and persistence in getting the NPC post secured at NPCC level, and for all your efforts over the recent month whilst holding the NPC post. We all very much appreciate what you have done.

Another ‘thank you’ to each of you!

‘Thank you’ to those who have been active over the Christmas and New Year period. It can be a strange time of the year for many officers and staff as they juggle work, home life and all the societal issues that seem to be magnified over this period. I am positive that your encouragement and presence will have made a positive impact. We know that there is a personal commitment from you to be present at these precious times, but it’s not gone unnoticed.

A bit about me...

I’m really pleased to have officially started this week as the NPC. As a way of a bit of an intro, I have been involved with Police Chaplaincy for over 12 years. I started out as a Volunteer with West Midlands Police and then went onto lead the Chaplaincy team at Warwickshire. For those who have made it to any of the conferences over recent years, we may well have met, or indeed on some of those PCUK zoom calls back in Covid!

I have been on staff at an Assemblies of God (AoG) Church in Birmingham, now called Trinity Church, also for 12 years. Although I have left that staff team, I will still be involved as a Pastor on a lesser scale, supporting the senior leaders with preaching and leading services as required. I’m married to Donna and we have three children. Two sons, who have finished in education, and a daughter who is in her GCSE exams year! We still live in Birmingham and are blessed to have a great friendship circle around us who cheer us on in both of our ministries and pray for us too.

So what’s in store for this new chapter?

I have presented a 3 year vision plan to the NPCC, PCUK board of trustees, and to the lead Chaplains at our gathering last year. It is called our ‘3D Mission’ and I’m looking forward to sharing more about the details of that in the coming months. The top line information for us all for now, is there are three stages that we will move through over the coming three years.

For this first 12 months, we will work to DEVELOP chaplaincy. This we come from understanding where each force is at with their chaplaincy provision. This will mean that I will get to come and meet with many of you at your respective forces, along with your lead chaplains and stakeholder senior officer. As PCUK gather a greater understanding of the width and breadth of our provision, we can then develop tools, ways of working, and good practice that will help us collectively increase our abilities to serve those we care for.

Year two will be the DELIVER year, where the good practices and initiatives identified, or the new tools and processes required can be rolled out. Year three leads us to DEEPEN what we had identified and delivered on. In year three we will evaluate how deep the routes are of what we have delivered ensuring they can continue to grow. It will be a year of evaluation too, where we can demonstrate the advances we have collectively made as we strive to serve the officers, staff and volunteers of our forces.

In the coming weeks you will start to hear about the engagement within the College and at NPCC level as we also strive to imbed Chaplaincy long term into the heart of policing. Likewise, there will be communications sent out to all Chief Officers as we engage from the top too.

Lastly, please keep a look out for further communications from PCUK about this year’s training conference. It is set to be a brilliant time together.

Looking forward to serving alongside you as we press on with bringing Chaplaincy to the heart of Policing.

Matthew

Summer Training Conference

24th June - 26 June 2024

Yarnfield Park Training & Conference Centre, Yarnfield Park, Yarnfield, Stone ST15 0NL

Bookings Open Early 2004

Contact Matthew

Matt can be contacted through the Police Chaplaincy UK Website

Or you can This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.him direct

<div

Tags:

Maggie Blyth Dom Jones Matthew Hopley National Police Chaplain New Year

Police Chaplaincy UK

822 Hits

Friday, 12 August 2022

Commonwealth Games Birmingham 2022 and Police Chaplaincy

Dom Jones

As I draw a breath at the completion of the Commonwealth Games Birmingham 2022 I reflect on the opportunity for us as a team being able to make such a positive difference to so many people.
Our team included our West Midlands Police Multi Faith Chaplaincy team comprising of 131 voluntary chaplains and myself (John), Matthew Hopley (Lead Chaplain at Warwickshire Police) and his team and countless other volunteers ranging from Cadets, Police Staff and members of the public.
Our chaplaincy team were involved in a myriad of areas of support which included our 18 Staff Welfare Hubs where Police Officers had their rest periods, food breaks, briefing and interaction with our team. Other areas of chaplaincy involvement included driving, logistics, serving food and practical & spiritual help to all our officers/staff and the many mutual aid officers from up and down the country representing many of our UK Forces.

I (John) was privileged before the Games started to look after & drive a number of VIP’s from various countries who were preparing for special large events like the Paris Olympics, the Football World Cup, etc, to just mention a few. This ‘Police Observer Programme’ included visiting the various venues of the Commonwealth Games and observing the Security/Counter Terrorism provisions that we had made in the West Midlands area.

Our Chaplaincy team did a fantastic job taking the opportunity to welcome everyone and provide welfare and chaplaincy support in the many venues, residential areas and operational programmes linked to the Games.

All of our Chaplaincy team members thoroughly enjoyed participating in the above and our Senior Management teams felt that all of our assistance made a lot of difference to both the Police Officers welfare and the positive feeling/vibes that we got from the public.

The opportunity to be a part of what was to be the largest policing event that the West Midlands Police had experienced was not only fulfilling but exciting at the same time.