Police force launches trauma-informed care for children in custody

The trauma-informed custody programme aims to better support children who have been arrested by focusing on understanding the impact of trauma, neglect or abuse.

This aims to better recognise children’s vulnerability as well as reduce repeat offending.

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Through the programme officers focus on measures to reduce stress and the risk of self-harm among children and explain the custody process through animated videos detailing their rights.

Family members are also called on where possible to act as appropriate adults to further support the children through the programme, which started as a 12-week pilot and is set to be adopted as routine practice across Northamptonshire.

In addition, Northamptonshire Police has been advised by a local neurodiversity practitioner on making environmental changes to cells to make them less oppressive for young people.

This includes putting backboards on walls so young detainees can express their emotions through drawing. Shapes have also been placed high up for detainees to bounce a ball against to help reduce stress.

“These small measures have made a huge difference in calming detainees, and having calm detainees makes for a much more amenable investigation – which supports a better outcome for the victim,” said Northamptonshire Police’s chief inspector Julie Mead.

“Being arrested for the first time as an adult can be frightening, so for a child that can be a traumatic experience in itself.

“We know a high proportion of children in our custody suites are likely to have experienced some kind of trauma or adverse event in their childhood. So, the approach we are now taking with every child, is that they are more likely than not to have a history of trauma.”

Other measures being taken include offering children access to a healthcare team on site as well as ensuring there is 24-hour access to social services for officers to help young inmates further.

Mead added: “In terms of children, we are now recognising that trauma can have lasting adverse effects on a child’s functioning and on their mental, physical, social, and emotional well-being.

“We need to be thinking ‘what happened to you?’ ‘What has brought you to this point?’ We need to look at things using a more trauma-focused lens.

“The children we see are often in crisis, so we look to decrease their distress, reduce the risk of self-harm, and help these young detainees to understand exactly what is happening to them. Our aim is to keep them in custody for only as long as necessary.”

Northamptonshire’s focus on trauma informed support is the latest initiative aimed at improving care for children in custody.

The Youth Justice Board is working with London Councils to develop a supported accommodation programme as an alternative to placing young people in custody. 

Last month a joint prison and police inspectors' report outlined a raft of improvements needed in West Mercia to improve help for children in custody. This included a call to ensure the force does more to find alternative accommodation for children and ensure they are detained for “the least time possible”.