Trauma-informed work with people in contact with the criminal justice system
Why read this evidence review?
Patricia Durr has written this evidence review of trauma-informed practice with people in contact with the criminal justice system in England and Wales. She wrote this when she was Director of Operations at One Small Thing and is currently Chief Executive Officer at ECPAT UK.
Growing interest in the UK in the impact of psychological trauma on the behaviour, health and wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities has led to the concept of trauma-informed practice finding its way into national justice policy including the Female Offender Strategy for England and Wales.
This evidence review explores the impact of trauma in the context of the criminal justice system, explains the core values behind trauma-informed services and defines the three stages to becoming trauma-informed in your practice. It then examines the emerging evidence of the impact of trauma-informed care with people in contact with the criminal justice system in the UK.
Given how new the idea of trauma-informed practice is to our justice system in the UK, the evidence base is small and more research is needed.
An online evidence base for the voluntary sector working in the criminal justice system
This article forms part of a series from Clinks, created to develop a far-reaching and accessible evidence base covering the most common types of activity undertaken within the criminal justice system. There are two main aims of this online series:
- To increase the extent to which the voluntary sector bases its services on the available evidence base
- To encourage commissioners to award contracts to organisations delivering an evidence-based approach.
Each article has been written by a leading academic with particular expertise on the topic in question. The topics are selected by Clinks’ members as areas of priority interest. Clinks intends to build a comprehensive directory of the best evidence available across a wide range of criminal justice topics within the next three years (2020-2023). The online evidence base is co-ordinated by Russell Webster on behalf of Clinks.