Raven Towles

Remain teachable. You never know everything. In order to grow, you can't box yourself in by assuming that you know everything. You have to remain curious, remain a student, so that you can learn and help others.

Don't be afraid to take up space and show up as your true, authentic self. Sometimes in my field, as women working with a lot of men, you may be prejudged on the outside or people will dismiss you. But don't be afraid to kick the door down. If it's closed, don't be afraid to keep pushing. If you know that something is right and you know that a change has to come, be the person to make the change. Sometimes it's okay, in certain circumstances, to ask for forgiveness rather than permission when it comes to lives, serving victims, and making sure that you are able to keep your victim alive. It's like life or death. You may not see what the rest of the team will see, and they may just say, this is a done deal, this is everything we can do. But if you know it's something you can do, keep going, keep pushing. Don't be small, don't shrink yourself.

The biggest challenge is being a civilian in law enforcement. When you are working with sworn officers who have the badge, and you have all of these accolades outside of law enforcement, sometimes you feel like you don't really matter because the officers get all the glory and all of the notoriety. But at the end of the day, this is passion work, and you have to do it just for the change, even if you are not highlighted or not recognized, or you don't feel like you are as important in the building. Just know your impact stretches way farther outside of the building, whether you have the badge or not. For most civilians, it's hard because they feel like they don't matter. For me, it's passion work, it's not just a job, so I don't get boggled down by the not receiving the kudos, or not being requested for the career days, because the kids want to see uniformed officers. It's literally my passion that drives me.

Empathy and integrity. It's the most important to always remember where I came from, remember how I felt when I was on the other side. Integrity means to always do the right thing. We hear people say have integrity, but it's so easy sometimes in power, especially when dealing with politics, to do certain things to get ahead, to try to skip a few steps. But you'll literally have to re-walk those steps, and you will lose time. It always comes back on you. So, empathy and integrity.