We asked new Rotorua police recruit Erin Coull-Roberts seven questions about her new job.
Constable Erin Coull-Roberts is living her dream - she gets to be a mum and a police officer, and live in Rotorua.
The new constable is just four weeks into the job at the Rotorua police, having started her 16-week training at Police College in June.
She has agreed toshare her story about becoming a police officer as part of national drive to attract new recruits to the New Zealand Police.
Police have todaylaunched its latest recruitment video. The video, called "Breaking News", is a fast-paced clip with quick-fire questions and answers in a news report style which aims to answer some of the questions from potential recruits.
Like last year's video, "World's Most Entertaining Police Recruitment Video", which went viral, the stars of the Breaking News video are police officers.
There are also special guest appearances including Wellington Paranormal's Minogue and O'Leary, Oscar Kightley and comedian David Correos.
Coull-Roberts moved to New Zealand from the UK just over 10 years ago. Armed with a graphic design qualification, she found it hard to get fulltime work in New Zealand because the formats used here were different.
Instead she worked in retail before having her first child. Now with two children, aged 5 and 4, she made the decision with her husband to further her career and applied for the New Zealand Police in May last year.
"Joining the police has always been a dream and part of the long-term plan."
She said the four months of training was full-on and it was hard to be away from her family, especially because she only came home three times.
"But there was an end goal and I just focused on that."
Now she's officially working, she will spend the next two years on shifts, which is a juggling act with her husband, who is also a shift worker as a nurse at Rotorua Hospital.
Constable Erin Coull-Roberts encourages women to join the police. Photo / Ben Fraser
But there were bonuses of shift work and having a family, she said.
"We work six days on and four days off and it's great if those days fall on the weekend.
"Plus with night shift you don't miss out on much because you are at work while they are asleep."
She encouraged as many women as possible to join.
"It's everything I expected and more. The comraderie here is so great. I already feel part of the team even though I've just arrived."
Police Commissioner Mike Bush said the police aspired for New Zealand to be the world's safest country and the Government had invested significantly to help them do that by growing staff numbers.
"We want to better reflect the communities we serve and this means attracting new staff from all backgrounds, but we particularly need more women, Māori, Pacific Islanders and Asians."
As well as the video, police have also today launched the web platform "ChatCops" found on the newcops.co.nz website.
ChatCops features around 70 videos with a variety of staff talking about who they are, their role at NZ Police, what it takes to be a cop, what training is involved and more.
Diversifying police Maori-Pacific- Asian Current Constabulary workforce: 12.4%-5.8%-4.0% Population estimate:15.7%-8.0%-15.4% Police applications 2017/18: 14.9%-7.4%-11.8%
How many women are police recruiting? 231 women graduated from the RNZPC during 2017/18, this is 36 per cent of all graduates. The target is to achieve 50 per cent of all recruits.
What is the current make up of New Zealand Police officers by rank and gender? female-male-female % Constable: 1584-5,067-23.8% Sergeant: 176-1247-12.4% Senior Sergeant: 59-415-12.4% Inspector: 41-253-13.9% Senior managers (Superintendent and above): 7-44-13.7% Total: 1,8677,025-21.0%
