When Teledo Breary was a community police constable, his favourite part of the job was going into schools to help steer pupils away from crime.

Now, having recently left the Bermuda Police Service after a 25-year career, he plans to focus his energies on education with the launch of a non-profit organisation called Help Me Speak Up Foundation.

Mr Breary, 46, told The Royal Gazette he planned to offer presentations and workshops to teach members of the community of all ages how to recognise risks, make responsible decisions and speak up safely where they see wrongdoing.

“It’s about educating the community because in order to speak up, you have to be educated first,” he said.

“Many harmful situations do not begin as major incidents. They often begin with warning signs, silence, fear or someone not knowing what to do.”

He hopes a key part of his work will again involve talking to students in schools, using prevention-based education to help tackle what he described as a “culture of silence, fear and peer pressure” that stops youths from speaking up about criminal or antisocial behaviour.

Mr Breary said he’d devised a specific programme for youths to provide them with “practical, age-appropriate education about the risks and situations they may encounter at school, online, on Bermuda' s roads and within the wider community”.

He added that the presentations and interactive learning activities covered “safeguarding, antisocial behaviour, responsible decision-making, bystander responsibility, peer pressure, conflict, road safety, online safety, personal safety and how to speak up safely and responsibly”.

He emphasised his focus was on “prevention, education, early intervention and appropriate support, not investigation or enforcement”.

Mr Breary was inspired by his daughters, Talai, 10, and Siena, 8, to spread his anti-crime message.

“My daughters are in the public school system at Elliot Primary School,” he said. “I've always said ‘in order to keep my kids safe, every kid has to be safe’.

“The information that I give my kids, I got to give the information to all the kids.”

He added: “I consider myself a community builder and advocate. I'm all about how can we best build our community.

“That comes over from my faith, that comes over from my experience as a school resource, a community officer. I found a passion for being a community police officer.

“[Now my] goal is not simply to deliver presentations. It is to establish a trusted prevention and education framework that can work alongside the organisations already serving Bermuda.”

Mr Breary has applied for charitable status for Help Me Speak Up Foundation.

• To find out more, visitwww.helpmespeakup.org