The Child Development-Community Policing Program: a partnership to address the impact of violence

Abstract

This article describes the development, evolution and current status of the New Haven Child Development-Community Policing (CDCP) Program, a partnership between child mental health professionals at the Yale Child Study Center and the New Haven Department of Police Service. The central mission of the program is to intervene early in an attempt to ameliorate the effects of children's exposure to violence. Recent programmatic expansion of the CDCP program into areas of juvenile offenders, specialized protocols for children affected by domestic violence, and school based groups are also explained. There are five core elements of the CDCP program: (1) Seminars in applied child development for police officers; (2) Fellowships for advanced police officers; (3) Fellowships for clinicians who are trained both in seminars and experientially in police practice and procedure; (4) A weekly program conference; and (5) A clinical consultation service in which clinicians are available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week are explicated.