Police-Mental Health Partnership: A Community-Based Response to Urban Violence

• NCJ Number: 198693
• Author(s): Steven Marans; Jean Adnopoz; Miriam Berkman; Dean Esserman; Douglas MacDonald; Steven Nagler; Richard Randall; Mark Schaefer; Melvin Wearing
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 161 pages
• Grant Number(s): 93-JN-CX-0004
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Sale Source: Yale University Press
• Publication Format: Book (Hardbound)
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This book describes how one city developed a collaborative effort between law-enforcement and mental health professionals for the purpose of helping children and their families who live in communities where violence, fear, and despair are daily experiences.

Abstract

The Child Development-Community Policing Program (CD-CP) in New Haven, Connecticut, began in 1991 as an effort to deal more effectively with children who are victims or perpetrators of violence. By working together, police and mental health professionals have been able to mobilize treatment services more quickly and effectively and ensure that treatment plans are implemented. The CD-CP seminar for police meets weekly for 10 weeks. In the seminar, officers are exposed to child-development principles and the experience of working alongside mental health professionals. They also learn concepts and methods for working cooperatively with other social services on behalf of children. The consultation service of the CD-CP program allows the police to make referrals and to have clinicians respond to officers' immediate needs for guidance, especially following children's traumatic experiences with violence. Consultation service clinicians carry beepers and are on call 24 hours a day to discuss problems of children and youth with the police. Police officers and clinicians who staff the CD-CP program meet weekly to discuss difficult cases that arise from the officers' direct experience, as well as to plan and assess program activities and integrate knowledge gained through the program. In addition to describing the program model, this book presents case studies of program operations as well as guidelines for selecting and training participants, operating a consultation service, and evaluating the program on an ongoing basis. The intention of this book is to provide the help needed for other communities to implement a similar project. 32 references, a subject index, and appended program forms and tools