BEDFORD CO., Va. – Bedford County is creating a direct path for high school grads to launch a law enforcement career, and they can start right away.
“For me, I always wanted to get into law enforcement, but I never had a clear path of how I was going to get there,” Andrew Spradlin said.
That changed for Spradlin when his JROTC instructor told him about the Headset to Badge program. It lets 18-year-olds start as dispatchers, gaining hands-on experience and a direct path into law enforcement.
Major Jon Wilks said a few years ago the sheriff and dispatch staff began discussing how to get young people interested in law enforcement earlier.
“A few years ago the sheriff and dispatch were talking and we were trying to find ways, when kids are in high school, they turn 18 years old then get out — how can we actually get them geared toward law enforcement, but yet we usually can’t get them until they’re 21,” Wilks said. “Some of the dispatchers came up with some ideas and spoke to the sheriff about it, and it kind of came as an idea that if we worked with dispatch, if they would hire them when they were 18 years old, right before 21, if we can hire them then we can hire them from dispatch here at the sheriff’s office. Then we’d put them through the academy and put them out as deputies.”
Spradlin started training July 1, taking certification courses and working on the dispatch floor, learning to handle emergency calls and systems.
Emergency Communications Director Christine Giglio said the program builds crucial skills like communication, crisis management and situational awareness — all vital for future officers.
“Right now it’s hard to get recruits for law enforcement, public safety in general,” Giglio said. “For us to start them here, and bring them forward, then we know we have people known in the field to command staff upstairs and to us down here that are going to be progressing forward.”
“It really helps, especially when you get out of high school. A lot of kids really don’t know what they want to do when they grow up or when they get out of high school,” Spradlin said.