Wiltshire Police Trauma Informed Practice Review (2021)

Wiltshire Police are a key stakeholder within Wiltshire's Family and Children's Transformation (FACT) Board.

Context

Wiltshire Police are a key stakeholder within Wiltshire's Family and Children's Transformation (FACT) Board. In November 2019 the FACT Board launched its Five to Thrive: Attachment Trauma and Resilience development programme, co-created with KCA as the commissioned training provider. The FACT Board programme aims to achieve systemic change across Wiltshire with the understanding that if public services are to deliver breakthrough impacts for children and young people, then everyone in the children's workforce need first to understand how they contribute to promoting secure attachment, recovery from trauma and building community resilience, and secondly 'own' their responsibility for doing so. In order to ensure alignment with the FACT Board programme, Wiltshire OPCC commissioned this work to support Wiltshire Police in becoming trauma informed. KCA delivered a Trauma Informed Development Programme that, while specifically designed for the police, reflected the same content and learning objectives as the county-wide programme and provided access to the Five to Thrive resources via the Licence points held by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council.

The best policing happens when police staff are able to be a source of co-regulation for people they come into contact with in their communities who are in a state of dysregulation. The nature of police work means that individual members of staff are, at any time, vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed by toxic stress and at that point are unable to act as that vital source of co-regulation to others. Learning about the neurophysiology of stress, trauma and the need for co-regulating connected relationships as described in Five to Thrive and Mending Hurts can support the workforce to notice the impact of their interactions as they provide co-regulation for others; notice when they themselves are at risk of or have become overwhelmed and need support from others; and in so doing build and maintain their own resilience.

Learning journey delivered by KCA

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A total of 16 full day webinars were delivered by KCA between November 2020 and February 2021 with the aim:

‘To support Wiltshire Police to develop and embed the use of Five to Thrive and Mending Hurts as approaches to support connected relationships, trauma informed practice and community resilience.’


Following the delivery of the first webinar to Champions, a reflective tutorial session was facilitated to:

• Co-produce relevant case studies to illustrate the application of Five to Thrive and Mending Hurts in Wiltshire police practice
• Adapt content and delivery based on feedback from Champions to ensure the webinar effectively met the needs of Neighbourhood and Response team colleagues

Each of the 15 subsequent webinars were co-facilitated by KCA and a Champion buddy pair. Champions shared examples of practice at relevant points during the training and facilitated discussion groups in break-out rooms.

‘Group work and talking with a "CHAMPION" kept you alert and interested.’
(Participant feedback)

‘It helps having the champions there to make the links between the learning and our ways of working.’ (Participant feedback)

Evaluation of KCA Delivery

  • 88% of participants would recommend this training to others
  • 92% of participants said the session was ‘very’ or ‘reasonably’ relevant to their work
  • 90% of participants said it would be useful in their everyday work
  • 93% of participants said that the learning objectives were either ‘mostly’ or ‘fully’ met by the webinar

How fully were the learning objectives met by the webinar?

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‘Overall very interesting and sadly very prevalent and relevant in our current times as Police Officers.’ (Participant feedback)

‘Thank you for the training. It will be really useful for me in my day to day work. Thank you for keeping it engaging.’
(Participant feedback)

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67% of participants said that the trainer was ‘the best that they had seen’ or ‘very good’.

‘Exceptionally well delivered by someone who was very well versed in her knowledge.’

‘Just very appreciative of this training being put together. It is the best course I have been on for many years. Well done.’

‘The best PLD yet. Lots to take in but very worthwhile.’

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Evaluation of Impact

On average, across the learning outcomes, participants recorded a 2 point (or 20%) increase in their understanding. The greatest increase in understanding was concerned with ‘understanding what is meant by trauma informed practice’.

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Following the webinar, 23% of participants felt ‘very confident’ at putting their learning into practice and 75% felt ‘reasonably confident’.

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