Senior Constable Clyde Lourensz recently started in the newly created role of Youth Specialist Officer at Horsham after a seven year stint at Edenhope Police. 

He is now one of 42 new Youth Specialist Officers around Victoria.

“The role was initially brought in to target those high risk young offenders in Melbourne, but the level of offending here in regional Victoria is very different,” he said.

“Our division will include Horsham, Stawell and Ararat, but I will also cover places such as St Arnaud, Edenhope, Kaniva and Lake Bolac. It’s more of a responsive role rather than proactive; I’ll be working with kids who have already come into the system.”

Being a police officer wasn’t always on Senior Constable Lourensz’s goal. He started his career in agriculture science and then moved into youth welfare.

“I then moved into community health and was a manager at Grampians Community Health; then I decided to join the police so I guess it was a pretty late career change. I got sick of going to meetings and staring at four walls,” he said.

Senior Constable Lourensz started his police career in Horsham before moving to Edenhope. He said he loved living in the community.

“I like working closely with the community and you can do a lot more proactive work in places like Edenhope. Although it’s sometimes difficult to measure, I think you can measure the success in the fact that we don’t have many statistics,” he said.

Senior Constable Lourensz said he decided to take on the new role so he could continue to help young people in the Wimmera community.

Coinciding with his past career in youth welfare, Senior Constable Lourensz has also been involved in five Operation Flinders exercises during his time with Victoria Police.

He said the program had greatly helped at-risk youth in the Wimmera.

“We basically take them on an eight-day hike where they learn a lot of independent skills. We target children who are on the cusp of starting to get involved with the police,” he said.

“Sometimes you don’t see the improvements immediately because they go back into the same environment, but we have spoke to them down the track and they always reflect on how good it was for them.

“The level of youth crime at Edenhope is basically non-existent and I think that’s partly because of the program.”

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