About Citizens in Policing
With 44 Police Forces in the UK, Citizens in Policing helps to bridge the gap between local communities and the police forces that serve them.
The role of Citizens in Policing is vital. Its volunteers help to increase the capacity of the forces, bringing a range of skills and expertise to the teams that they serve.
32 million people volunteer for the police force each year, gaining a number of benefits whilst doing so – including giving something back to the local community, building skills that can be implemented into a work environment, building self confidence and helping to make a difference within the local area.
The Task
This is a new step for the organisation. Currently, all vacancies are advertised on the local force websites. The aim for Citizens in Policing is to pull these together, and showcase the vast range of positions that are available within the force, talk about the different forces and display success stories about those who volunteer for the force, as well as how volunteers have had a positive impact in the local communities. And ultimately to encourage visitors to apply!
The website needed to be engaging, responsive and work for a wide range of users with varying abilities. It also needed a backend area that will allow a member for each force to be able to add the vacancies and list them on the website.
The Website
Design and User Experience
Keeping up with web trends, the website is designed to be familiar to a user who is coming to the site to look for a vacancy within a local force. It showcases the volunteers in a positive light and moves away from presenting the force as something to be feared.
Using subtle colour schemes, and hinting to the forces’ stand-out blue, we have designed something that allows Citizens in Policing to still have its own identity.
With the introduction of icons through the website on the homepage, force profiles and vacancies, it allows users to recognise skills that they will benefit and gain from by becoming a volunteer at their local force, and should assist in promoting each vacancy to result in more applications for the roles.
Content Management Systems
The website has been built using a Laravel/WordPress hybrid. This is due to the nature of the portal system and how it integrates into the website. We built the site portal first, with the front-end website bolted on afterwards.
Laravel allows the inner workings of the portal to talk to the WordPress CMS, which the admin will be able to login to. There they can edit content and approve job listings, blog posts and other key elements, which display on the front-end of the website.
Key Features
Aside from being built using clean code and the best development techniques, the user will be able to sign-up to email alerts that will inform them of new vacancies that match their required criteria and link them back to the website.
The user will also be able to search using their postcode to show vacancies within a certain catchment area. They’ll be able to find out more about that particular vacancy and then be directed to apply directly through the force’s website.
The website portal allows key members of each police force to add vacancies to the system, have access to links, resources and add blog posts to the website, without the need to edit the backend of the system.
The site will also have an interactive quiz added, in a phase 2 development that will allow you to see which type of role fits you best. Stay tuned!
Who Worked On The Project?
Why not take a look at the website, and let us know what you think?