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News 12 Staff

105spotlightnj2_2024-10-05-09-30-19

We are talking with two members of the Morris County Sheriff's office, Corporal Erica Valva and Sheriff's Officer Chelsea Whiting. Earlier, we were talking about Hope one in the first segment right now. Let's talk about the Explorer program. Sure. Our Explorer program is through the Morris County Sheriff's office and it's for youth ages 10 to 20 years old. So what we do is we are able to expose that to all the different areas of law enforcement. They participate in meetings twice a month where they actually learn and work with the officers. So you'll see that they are marching to a cadence. You'll see that they are learning how to do emergency field first aid. So we put them through all these different experiences. So one day when they go into the field of law enforcement, they're prepared. So actually I started as an explorer when I was a young child adult. Exactly. When I was 13, I actually entered the program and from there when I turned 18, I took the test to become an investigator with the sheriff's office. So I was able to build up to go through the police academy and be prepared because programs like the Explorer program really prepared me for what to expect in the field of law enforcement. How would you say that program was invaluable for you? So it led me to where I am today. 20 years later, working at the sheriff's office, starting as an Explorer with the program and now being an advisor with the program with Officer Chelsea and being able to really show women and, and girls that they can do it, they can be a female in law enforcement. They can have that successful career and, and really learn from great officers with the sheriff's office, not just myself at Chelsea. Yeah. And that visual of it is important for them too as you've seen. Yeah, there's so many advisers and we're really fortunate. I'm really fortunate to work with Erica because we're able, you know, she went through the Explorer program herself. So I think she knows exactly what she wanted to be as an advisor, exactly how she wanted to run the program. Um, so it's very nice for me. Uh, because I'm able to look up to Erica and see how she's running it, um, and be able to really give back to the Children that are really interested in law enforcement.

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105spotlightnj3_2024-10-05-12-34-12

I'm sitting here with two members of the Morris County Sheriff's office, Corporal Erica Valvano and Sheriff's Officer Chelsea Whiting. We wanted to talk more about your Explorer program. Sure. Our Explorer program offers 10 to 20 year olds. The experience with law enforcement, getting to know the officers and those relationships is really important. And as a female in law enforcement, it's really cool to see these young men and women interested in the field. Yeah. So right now we have about more than half of our explorers from the ages of 10 to 20 are actually females. Wow, that's impressive. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of mirroring if you will our own police department, right. The Morris County Sheriff's office. We have a ton of females that work with us. And now we're also expanding the Explorer program where more than three quarters females or more than half I should say of females. That's a lot. How do they feel? Knowing they get this opportunity to walk in your shoes to see what you do? We've had explorers become state troopers. We've had explorers become attorneys. We've had explorers become paid firefighters. So, as an advisor, it's really cool to see the explorers grow and become first responders and help people so they can do what our advisers do. They can mirror our positions and, and really just grow. So you all keep tabs on track of what everybody who's come through the program is doing. Yeah. And what's even cooler is that sometimes when we're out with hope one, Erica will be out obviously and people will come up and be like, oh, I was your Explorer 10 years ago and now I'm an officer with whatever police department they're with. So that is very humbling to hear. It's, it's awesome. It must make you feel very, like, take a lot of pride in what you do and know this is your legacy. Absolutely. Being able to teach our youth that you can be a productive member of society, you can be a helper, we call them helpers. You can, uh, you know, save lives and change lives through a career as a first responder.

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Corporal Erica Valvano and sheriff’s officer Chelsea Whiting joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss the program.

Spotlight New Jersey: Morris County Sheriff's Office program helps people struggling with addiction

Corporal Erica Valvano and sheriff’s officer Chelsea Whiting joined News 12’s Della Crews to discuss the program.

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