More than 100 young people from across Scotland have taken part in a police volunteering event.
Five groups of volunteers from Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Cumnock in Ayrshire were recognised today for completing the 12-week programme.
It is hoped they will be able to put their training to use during the Commonwealth Games and the Junior Ryder Cup in September.
Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Stephen House said the scheme could be developed further.
Speaking after a passing out parade at the Scottish Police College at Tulliallan, Fife, he said: "It is fantastic to see so many young and enthusiastic people involved and we hope that they will have the chance to be deployed at many exciting new opportunities.
"They will take on a number of roles and although they will be identified through their uniform as Police Scotland Youth Volunteers they are not there to carry out policing functions.
"Through the programme the young people have grown in confidence and developed leadership skills and it is anticipated that the scheme will be further developed."
All the volunteers took part in a range of activities aimed at instilling values of citizenship and public service, with training including working with police officers and teachers to learn about the rank and structure of the force.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "Young people are our future and it is great to see so many taking the opportunity to make a real difference in their local areas across Scotland.
"This is why we are providing over £250,000 funding for the development of the Police Scotland's Youth Volunteers Programme which will help young people understand the role of policing, give them a chance to be heard, gain confidence, leadership skills and become positive role models for other young people in their communities."
The project was carried out between Police Scotland, charity Young Scot and YouthLink Scotland, the national agency for youth work.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article