The Medfield Police Youth Academy

The Medfield Police Youth Academy

The Medfield Police Department hosted "The Medfield Police Youth Academy" (session 1) in June, 2025. Session 2 was held in mid August. Medfield Police Chief, Michelle Guerette was asked how this all came about and this is what she had to say....

"One of my goals and visions for the Medfield Police Department was to incorporate non law enforcement interactions between our officers and youth population that enhanced our relationships. The Medfield Police Youth Academy is designed to foster trust and provide context of our roles and responsibilities in our community.

This program has been six years in the making and has come to fruition by the dedicated work of our officers. While we advertised within the schools and on our website, the success of the program lies directly with the officers who worked tirelessly over this last year engaging students and parents and encouraging them to participate.

We had approximately 60 interested candidates and felt that holding 2, week long academies of between 20-25 students per week, would offer the best opportunity for us to provide a personalized experience for the kids.

Detective Sergeant Dylan Haldiman and Sergeant Robert Hain supervised a staff and developed our
curriculum for the program. Almost every officer and several of our dispatchers have participated in classroom instruction while the other members provided coverage of patrol shifts to make this academy work. To say this has been a team effort would be an understatement.

The cadets have learned about patrol duties, community engagement, officer wellness and defensive tactics as well as watched demonstrations by the Millis K-9 handler and the Massachusetts State Police Air Wing Unit. Having these tremendous partnerships with other agencies has hopefully
made this experience more exciting for our cadets.

We have a second academy scheduled for August and look forward to doing this again next year. There was no cost to any of the participants. Our department received a generous donation a while back from Middlesex Bank to focus on programs that enhance community relations, which we used to support this initiative.

Our next ambitious project will be to create a Citizens Academy inviting adult members of the community to learn more about what we do. We hope to have this organized for early next year.

"This has been a genuine joy for me to see happen and I hope the kids are getting as much out of
this program as our officers. Having a program like this reminds our members “why” they got into policing in the first place!", MPD Chief, Michelle Guerette.