Trauma-Informed Policing SIG

Warren Larkin presented on his experience over the last 7 years of consulting and collaborating with partnerships and places across the UK and abroad. His talk focused on describing practice-based evidence and some work on a randomised control trial (RCT) evaluating trauma informed and relational practices in 70 Secondary Schools in England.

Profile: Warren Larkin Profile

Dr. Lori Desautels has been an Assistant Professor at Butler University since 2016 where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education. She was also an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for 8 years where she founded the Educational Neuroscience Symposium. Currently, the Symposium is in its 10th year, and now sponsored by Butler University College of Education. Through these conferences and symposiums, educators, parents and the community learn deeply about how adversity, trauma and resiliency impact the developing nervous system, helping our students to feel a sense of autonomy and purpose along with social, emotional and cognitive well-being. 

Profile: https://revelationsineducation.com/about-us/

Book: https://revelationsineducation.com/the-book/

Ruth Parks gave a talk on working with sexual abuse imagery. 

Ruth works in the Practice Learning Team in the School of Social Work, Care and Community at the University of Central Lancashire. Her role involves teaching on the professional Social Work courses, allocating placements, and developing effective working relationships with local employers in the social work/social care sector. Ruth has a PhD in the psychology of workplace trauma exposure. Her research explored the experiences of Police personnel who are exposed to sexual offences.

Ruth is the disability lead for the school and is passionate about ensuring equal learning opportunities for all students. She is also the deputy lead for Youth and Justice in the University-wide trans-disciplinary Criminal Justice Partnership.

Profile: https://www.uclan.ac.uk/academics/dr-ruth-parkes

Criminal Justic Research: Police sexual trauma exposure

Katherine MacLachlan spoke about “Trauma-informed Sentencing: Now and in the Future” and an update on what is happening in South Australia (see abstract below).

Katherine McLachlan, BA(Hons), LLB(Hons), LLM, GDLP, PhD has extensive experience working across criminal justice and social welfare agencies focused on child protection and child exploitation, youth justice, police intelligence, crime policy and research, victim support, and corrections. She is currently a member of the Parole Board of South Australia and has interviewed hundreds of people who have offended. She is an award-winning teacher who joined Flinders Criminology in 2022 and has a professional interest in victimology, trauma-informed practice, sentencing, and violence against women and children.

Profile: https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/katherine.mclachlan

Dan Jones from Edmonton, Canada had a talk on Understanding the Justice Client: Policing from a Trauma Informed Lens.

Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-jones-9041b61a/?originalSubdomain=ca

Professor Luna Dolezal who leads the Medicine and Shame Project at Exeter University spoke about her work with Devon and Cornwall Police to develop Shame-Competent Policing. 

Medicine and Shame Project Link: https://shameandmedicine.org/