Keeping ourselves Safe - A visit from Adele our Community Police Officer

Today we had a special visit from a New Zealand Police Officer. Constable Adele White came to teach us how we can keep ourselves safe, especially when we are travelling in cars, at the shops and in car parks. We really enjoyed listening to her story about the little boy going to the supermarket with his Mum who wasn’t wearing a seat belt. We talked about what could happen to us if we don’t wear our seat belts or sit in our car seats. She gave us all some great tips on how we can keep safe in a car such as always sitting in the back seat if there is space as it is the safest place for small children and to always make sure we are sitting in a car seat or booster seat with our seat belts on until we are SEVEN years old. She also gave us the job of being special police helpers and whenever we get in cars we need to tell the driver “I am the police officers special helper and I need to wear my seat belt!”  We especially loved it when Randy got up and did some acting with Constable Adele; they taught us all about how to help ourselves if we get lost from our Mums or Dads. Randy did an amazing job of telling her his Mum and Dad’s names and the road he lives on so Constable Adele could look in the phone book to find his phone number and call his Mum and Dad to come and get him. She told us it’s a great idea if we can learn our phone number or the number on our letter box so if we ever did get lost someone can help us out! Another great idea she taught us is when we are lost or in trouble who to go to for help, she talked about what a police officer’s uniform looks like, they wear a light blue shirt that has a badge on the arm that says ‘Police’ with dark blue pants, black boots and a special hat with the police badge on the front. If we can’t find a police officer she told us we could ask a Mum or Dad that has children with them if they could please help us. We really enjoyed all the special skills Constable Adele taught us to keep ourselves safe but our favourite part was getting to go look at her cool police car! She showed us her special lights, her radio and the special markings on the side that say ‘Police’ so we know how to find it!