An evaluation of the Adverse Childhood Experience Trauma Informed Multi-agency Early Action Together (ACE TIME) training: national roll out to police and partners

Glendinning, Freya, Barton, Emma R, Newbury, Annemarie, Janssen, Hayley, Johnson, Georgia, Ramos Rodriguez, Gabriela, McManus, Michelle ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0095-1071, Harker, Sophie and Bellis, Mark A. (2020) An evaluation of the Adverse Childhood Experience Trauma Informed Multi-agency Early Action Together (ACE TIME) training: national roll out to police and partners. Project Report. Public Health Wales.

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Abstract

In a rapidly changing society, modern policing faces new pressures and increasing demands to respond to incidents of high threat, harm, risk and vulnerability. Responding to such incidents has become a core element of policing across the UK. Whilst the police are well placed to identify and respond to vulnerability, research has highlighted that traditional policing methods, training and systems are not designed to meet the changing levels and types of vulnerability demand. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and College of Policing (CoP) have highlighted the need to transform policing within the UK to develop a workforce of confident professionals with the skills to respond to vulnerability and the complex needs of the local community. The pan-Wales Early Action Together (E.A.T.) programme aimed to develop a whole systems response to vulnerability to enable police and multi-agency (MA) partners to recognise signs of vulnerability at the earliest opportunity and to work together to provide access to support beyond statutory services. Key to achieving this was the development and delivery of the Adverse Childhood Experience Trauma Informed Multi-agency Early Action Together (ACE TIME) training programme. The ACE TIME training aims to ensure that police and MA partners have the appropriate knowledge and skill to respond to vulnerability using an ACE and trauma-informed approach. The training built on a small-scale pilot carried out within South Wales police1 and was further developed by the ACE Coordinator Service positioned within Barnardo’s and the E.A.T. national programme team. Public Health Wales and Bangor University undertook an independent evaluation of the ACE TIME training to capture its immediate impact on police and MA partners’ knowledge, practice, competence and confidence when responding to vulnerability. The evaluation comprised a number of pre and post-training questionnaires that incorporated previously validated measures1 and a number of open-ended questions (see pg. 21) with open text boxes for participant’s comments. The current report evaluated the phase one roll out of the ACE TIME training (from September 2018 to January 2019). During the data collection period, 1,034 professionals were trained, of which 996 participated in the evaluation (849 police officers or staff and 147 MA partners). Police and MA partners across Wales from a range of different operational roles and teams took part in the evaluation (see table 3, pg. 24). Among police participants, approximately half worked in response roles (i.e., ‘999’ response; 51%). A further 21% worked within neighbourhood policing teams (NPT); and those from the public protection unit (PPU), custody, criminal investigation department (CID) and other investigative roles made up the remainder of departments (28%). Among MA partners, approximately 22% worked with children and young people’s education services; 22% within safeguarding, social care and family sector, 22% within the health and well-being sector and 16% in housing, community and local authority.