Child Development-Community Policing: Partnership in a Climate of Violence

• NCJ Number: 164380
• Author(s): S Marans; M Berkman
• Date Published: March 1997
• Length: 8 pages
• Grant Number(s): 95-JN-FX-0022
• Agencies: OJJDP
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)

Annotation

The police in New Haven, Conn. and the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine have developed a collaborative program that offers a national model for partnerships among police and mental health professionals to address the impact of chronic exposure to community violence on children and families.

Abstract

The Child Development-Community Policing (CD-CP) program brings police officers and mental health professionals together to provide each other with training, consultation, and support and to provide direct interdisciplinary intervention to children who are victims, witnesses, or perpetrators of violent crime. The program rests on research revealing that children's exposure to violence, abuse, or neglect is significantly associated with increased depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, anger, greater alcohol use, and lower school achievement. Other research indicates that parents tend to significantly underestimate their children's exposure to community violence as well as associated stress symptoms. The CD-DP program model consists of interrelated training and consultative components including child development fellowships for police supervisors; police fellowships for clinicians; a seminar for police officers, mental health clinicians, and related professionals; consultation service; and a program conference. The program has had positive impacts and is being replicated under an OJJDP and private grants in seven other cities. 22 references