A long-serving police officer has swapped catching criminals for lunch clubs and pensioners’ foot care.
But Cassie Forbes couldn’t be happier with her choice.
The 51-year-old retired from Police Scotland in November last year after completing her 30 years service. Time off for successful breast cancer treatment gave her time to consider retirement and her next move.
And it was serendipity when it turned out to be becoming the new boss of Roar, the Renfrewshire charity which supports older adults.
Cassie enjoyed a varied career with the police force which included stints with the Scottish Crime Squad, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and as an international liaison officer.
She worked on a number of high-profile murder cases including the Arlene Fraser case, and a fire in Helensburgh that killed three members of the Sharkey family, as well as working for eight weeks on the Glasgow Airport terror attack.
She became a Community Inspector in Renfrewshire in 2014 and said it was her favourite role in the police.
During that time she joined the board of Roar as a police contact, but it was personal reasons which drove her to the charity.
Cassie said: “I wanted to join Roar’s board for two reasons.
“My mum set up an initiative when I was growing up which held coffee mornings during the year and at Christmas, she’d buy presents and cards for older residents with the money they made.
“The other reason was we lost my parents and my husband John’s parents within 18 months of each other. We saw first hand how they deteriorated. My mother-in-law had an accident when she was cutting her own toenails and she cut into the bone.
“That resulted in several infections and she got gangrene. She was 82 and it escalated and it eventually killed her.
“She was the main carer for my father-in-law who had MS. He went into a home after she died and passed away three months later.
“Roar’s focus on foot care and falls prevention as well as tackling loneliness and isolation really struck with me.”
Cassie was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2019. She had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy and the treatment was successful.
She returned to work in February 2020 but then decided to retire in November after finishing her 30 years service with the police.
“Life is too short,” she said. “I realised being off, I had a long time to think and re-evaluate and I knew I needed to do something different.”
At the same time Nicola Hanssen, the previous CEO of Roar, was considering moving on from the organisation she’d worked for and developed for the last ten years.
Cassie said: “Nicola has led a fantastic ship and I’ve got big shoes to fill. There’s a great team here and Roar has a fantastic reputation.
“Working in community policing I already had links with the council and other groups.”
Cassie said she’s well aware that Roar will need to change and adapt to a post-Covid world and that it’s a time of transition for the service.
She and her team of five staff are asking all 850 service users and 120 volunteers to ask what they think should be the priorities moving forward.
First on the agenda is Stepping Into Spring which is encouraging people to get more active and look ahead to better weather and getting outdoors more.
They are also starting a new project focusing on women aged 80 plus who can be more prone to falls while funding from Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership will employ a worker looking at tackling loneliness and isolation in the Gleniffer and East End areas of Paisley.
They also hope to restart their foot care project as soon as Renfrewshire moves into tier three.
“We want to keep people’s spirit’s up,” said Cassie. “We had our Colour in January project which went really well but covid is having such a big impact on people’s mental health.
“A lot of older adults haven’t been out of the house for months. We have to start gradually, even if it’s just walking around their living room more.
“This is a chance for us to review all our clubs and see what works and what didn’t work.”
Cassie, who is married to John and stepmum to Murray, 11, lives in Bridge of Weir.
She said she’s honoured and looking forward to her new role, adding: “I joined the police to make a difference and now I’m going to be doing that in a different way.”
