Peel Roleplay were delighted to recently be appointed as the exclusive provider of Role Actors to the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire Police Constabularies, collectively known as the Seven Force Strategic Collaboration. The collaboration also includes the police forces of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent and was established in 2015, to develop and implement collaborative solutions to protect the front-line local delivery of policing across the East of England. The programme covers a geographic area of more than 9,000 square miles, serving nearly 8 million residents, making it one of the most ambitious police partnership programmes ever undertaken.    

Since the contract was awarded in September 2023, we have been working closely with the Crime Training Department in the delivery of their Investigative Interviewing courses (PIP1, PIP2, Specialist, MOSOVO) and have placed over 120 highly trained and experienced Role Actors with a 100% success rate in a range of suspect, witness and victim roles. Our Role Actors are experts at bringing realism to scenarios, creating a highly immersive and effective learning experience which allows trainees to practice their new skills in a safe and controlled environment. It has been a key aspect of our Role Actor training for the delivery of this contract, that emotive and realistic performances are achieved through communication, gestures, emotions and psychological interactions with candidates – whilst ensuring a reliable, consistent and controlled interaction, so as not to disrupt or negatively affect the trainee’s learning and development.   

For this contract, a key consideration was ensuring a seamless transition process was achieved moving from their previous Role Actor Supplier to Peel Roleplay, and we have been able to manage this successfully with no impact to the course timetable. 

Although Peel Roleplay has worked in the field of professional role play and simulation for over a decade with various higher education, healthcare and public sector clients, this was our first full-service contract within Police role play, which we acknowledged as a potential obstacle and worked hard to research and consult with experts in the sector prior to contract award. The client was confident in our ability to fulfil this contract due to our vast previous experience in professional role play provision and the understanding we demonstrated of their specific needs during the tender process. 

Due to the specialised and potentially sensitive nature of the courses/roles, a bespoke, comprehensive recruitment and training programme was developed upon contract award, taking the following unique requirements into consideration:

• Role profiles (Victim, Witness, Suspect)
  Special characteristic requirements (age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, disability status etc.)
• NPPV1 vetting compliance
• Confidentiality compliance
• Cohort resilience (ensuring 100% delivery)
• Actor resilience (trigger vetting, mental health safeguarding and trauma support)