LAST Friday, I was delighted to present our East Lothian Police Scotland Youth Volunteers (PSYV) with their certificates at their passing out ceremony at Ross High School in Tranent.

The PSYV programme allows young people to give back to their community whilst gaining valuable life skills which will help them through whatever journey they take through life.

Our PSYV programme was relaunched last autumn, having been on hold due to Covid-19.

We currently have nine youth volunteers and five adult volunteers who are part of the 1,100-strong volunteer community across Police Scotland. Our young volunteers range between 13 and 15 years old and are from five of our local high schools.

In addition to proud family members and parents, I was also joined at this event by a number of guests including our Provost and Deputy Provost, one of our Deputy Lord Lieutenants, and other partner agencies including Volunteer Centre East Lothian, who kindly allowed us to use their premises for training, and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Many selfies were taken and I am very proud of the achievements of our volunteers, who have completed their 12-week training course and will now have the opportunity to volunteer in events across both East Lothian and Scotland.

They have already been involved in assisting the clean-up operation at Cockenzie after vandals targeted the community gardens, litter picking in Tranent and bike-marking at Haddington Farmers’ Market.

Their next events include litter picking in Haddington and the Kilomathon running event.

We are currently seeking to recruit more adult and youth volunteers so, if you are interested and are able to give up spare time between 2pm and 4pm on Friday afternoons, please visit psyv.org and click on the relevant sections.