Our Neighbourhood Policing Teams are the backbone of our force – they are the faces you see every day on the streets of the West Midlands, focused on your safety.
And one PCSO made safety her personal mission after raising a whopping £1,600 to install Bleed Control Kits across her local area.
She has now been praised by West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster, who has hailed the impact she has had on the community.
Using her own free time outside of policing, PCSO Zoe Bishop set up a charity fundraising page dedicated to getting the life-saving kits installed at locations across Sutton Coldfield.
She was inspired after meeting the mother of a knife crime victim, Lynne Baird, at an event Zoe had organised in the city centre for National Knife Crime Awareness Week.
Lynne set up the Daniel Baird foundation, which provides bleed prevention kits, following the tragic death of her son Daniel who was stabbed to death in Birmingham in 2017.
The kits include items such as a tourniquet, bandages and a foil blanket which can help prevent people from bleeding to death while waiting for paramedics to arrive.
Zoe, who joined West Midlands Police in 2008, said: “At that event Lynne asked where I lived and I told her Sutton Coldfield, she said there’s barely any kits in Sutton Coldfield so I said let’s change that.
“I set up a GoFundMe page which I shared with friends, family and members of the Sutton Coldfield community via social media and within seven days I had exceeded my target of £600 and achieved £1,600.”
With that money Zoe bought a Daniel Baird Bleed Control Cabinet that was fixed to the outside of Ian Hazels Funeral Directors in Mere Green.
She also got her local councillor Ewan Mackey on board, and he got the council to contribute too, with £2,000 spent on kits for Sutton Coldfield in total.
She said: “Ewan was so invested in supporting me getting this life-saving kit available to the community that he approached Sutton Town Council and got them to fund a Bleed Control Cabinet that we arranged fitting on Moor Hall Primary School.
“This is the first primary school in the West Midlands to have a cabinet fitted to the school gates that the community will have access to 24/7.”
Zoe has been so successful, a local councillor asked her to replicate her work in Erdington.
“I also met with Councillor Alden, of the Erdington ward, last week as he wants me to help him replicate what I’ve done in Sutton, in Erdington,” she added.
Cabinets cost around £600 to buy and most in the city have been done through fundraising or money through organisations.
A second was fixed to Sutton Coldfield Town Hall and various pouch kits are kept inside reception areas at the following locations:
• Moor Hall Primary School
• On The Bread Line Bakery
• Streetly Academy
• Bishop Walsh Catholic School
• John Willmott School
• Arthur Terry Secondary school
West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster said: “As we mark Neighbourhood Policing Week, this is a fine example of the great work officers do, out on the streets, for their community.
“Bleed kits are a vital resource in our communities, that can prevent deaths from knife crime and PCSO Bishop has raised an incredible amount of money to make her community safer.”
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