Providence Police Academy becomes an Apprenticeship Program

The Providence Police Department has the first apprenticeship program of its kind in Rhode Island.  Because the Providence Police Academy has all the essential elements of apprenticeship – employment from day one, on-the-job learning, related instruction, and wage progression, the Providence Police were able to register as an Apprenticeship program and tap into the workforce development supports open to Registered Apprenticeships.

This is why Patrolman Steve Cileli initially contacted the Apprenticeship RI team to explore how the apprenticeship model could help set the Providence Police Academy apart from other police academies.

Through the support of Apprenticeship RI and in partnership with Workforce Solutions, the Providence Police were able to receive federal WIOA funds to increase training wages to a competitive level. Officer Cileli hopes to retain a higher quality of recruits in the current Academy class due to the increase, yielding a more family supportable wage during the training phase.

He is proud to be the first police department in the state to register an apprenticeship program. As part of the police explorer program through learn for life, he believes it is extremely important for police officers to be embedded in the community to help make it a safer place.  Now, he is using the apprenticeship model to provide mentorship and on the job learning to pass along experience and values to new officers.

This year’s Police Academy graduated in August, including Jessica who became interested in becoming a police officer due to a family tragedy where she had a positive experience with an officer in her community who helped her family and inspired her career path.  “I look forward to succeeding in the department and potentially working with youth within the community.”  Apprenticeship RI offers our congratulations to Jessica and all of the Police Academy graduates that have joined the apprenticeship program.

 

For more information about apprenticeship please visit www.apprenticeshipri.org.

For workforce financial resources please visit www.employri.org.