October 2024 Vulnerability and Risk Consolidated

This unit must be completed to comply with the Policing Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) on the National Detective Programme. This unit should take around 60 minutes to complete and does not need to be completed all at once. You can return to this unit as often as you like.

START

October 2024

Vulnerability and Risk (Consolidated PEQF Content)

Examples of vulnerabilities or needs that could be recorded:

• Intimidated.
• Learning difficulties.
• Age (very young / elderly).
• Gender (including where a person identifies as trans, non-binary or any other gender identity and/or has expressed a preference for a particular form of address or pronouns).
• Difficulties with expressive communication.
• Difficulties in understanding (including language barriers).
• Physical disability.
• Whether they can read and / or write.
• Dementia.
• Vulnerable because of living in close proximity to offender.

College of Policing: Obtaining an initial account: Identify and record needs and vulnerabilities

Identifying vulnerabilities

The focus of this programme is on building the resilience of vulnerable families, and on driving system change so that every area has joined up, efficient local services which are able to identify families in need and provide the right support at the right time. Since 2015, over 470,000 vulnerable families have received direct support through Supporting Families (previously Troubled Families) to build a brighter future and the positive ripple effect of that has been much larger with over a million families having benefitted from the programme’s ‘whole family’ approach.

Click on the video above to watch a video showing a Channel 4 news clip of the Troubled Families Programme (now the Supporting Families Programme.)

Supporting Families programme

QUESTION 1/4

Young adults are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system compared to other age groups and reoffend at a higher rate. The combination of high offending and high potential for desistance supports a focus on 18-24 year olds.

Prison Intelligence officers

Government agencies

Nighbourhood watch

Government ageny intelligence network

Multi-agency public protectio arrangemet

Hoe office immigration enforcement

International law enforcement alerts platform

ACRO

EUROP

Understanding the age/offending curve

QUESTION 2/4

Click here to visit the Foundations website

The Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) website merged with What Works for Children's Social Care (WWCSC) in June 2023 to create Foundations. Foundations is the national What Works Centre for Children & Families. They believe all children should have the foundational relationships they need to thrive in life. They're researching, generating, and translating evidence into practical solutions that shape better policy and practice and lead to more effective family support services, so more vulnerable children have the foundational relationships they need to thrive in life.

What works from the Early Intervention Foundation website

Becoming A Man

Advanced LifeSkills Training (LST)

The EIF have two prgrammes which tackle youth violence. Click on each of the programmes below to discover a summary of each programme.

EIF Recommendations - Tackling youth gangs

QUESTION 3/4

Breck Bednar was a 14-year-old boy from Surrey who, like many boys of his age, loved technology and computer games and spent lots of time 'gaming'. Breck came into contact with his murderer, Lewis Daynes, over the internet. Play the video to explore the case.

Recent high profile cases highlighting vulnerability and risk

Click here to read the IICSAreport

Click here to access the 'Learning for the future: final analysis of serious case reviews, 2017 to 2019

Click here to visit the 'Learning the Lessons' library

Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA)

Analysis of serious case reviews

Learning the Lessons

Tools to consider for managing vulnerability and risk

Read through the profiles on the next pages. Identify the vulnerabilities and consider an appropriate intervention.

ACTIVITY

Cameron Wright

Fiona Shaw

Next

Frankie Hill

ACTIVITY

Consider Frankie's behaviour and if any interventions can be made.

Frankie

Back

Frankie is 15 years old and is the primary carer for his elderly grandmother who struggles to leave their council bungalow. Frankie often misses school and when he does he is repeatedly in trouble with his teachers for acting out in lessons. His teachers have also reported that he often smells like cannabis and is disorientated in class. He spends break times alone, sitting on his phone. This week during history, while learning about sufragettes, he made a derogatory comment about women.

ABOUT

Consider Fiona's behaviour and if any interventions can be made.

Fiona

Back

Fiona is 14 and lives with her mum and four younger siblings who she often looks after while her mum works. This mean she often misses school. She has an older boyfriend (17) who she met through her current group of friends. She has been brought in several times by officers after joining in harassing an elderly man who lives alone, alongside her boyfriend and group of friends. This has included writing "nonce" on his door and posting dog waste through his letterbox.

ABOUT

Consider Cameron's behaviour and if any interventions can be made.

Cameron

Back

Cameron is 13 years old and lives with his mum and dad in Croydon. His dad has recently been made redundant and his mum has taken up two jobs to support the family. His teachers have reported concerns to his parents due to Cameron's repeated abseentism. His friends have confided in the school safeguarding lead that Cameron often visits different places during the week on the train and brags that "all he has to do is drop a bag to a randomer and he gets new stuff".

ABOUT

• Supporting families programme
• Becoming a man
• Advanced Lifes Skills Training
• College of Policing Vulnerability and violent crime interventions

Further reading

QUESTION 4/4

End of Unit

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse published 19 reports on 15 investigations covering a wide range of institutions. These reports were used by the Chair and Panel to help inform findings and shape recommendations to better protect children in the future. Rapid read versions provide an overview of each of these reports, as well as the Inquiry's Interim Report, summarising the key findings and any recommendations made.

There is research support for treating 18-24 year olds as a distinct group, recognising their differing levels of maturity and the evidence that brain development continues into the twenties, impacting upon self-control, consequential thinking and appraisal of risk. Adverse life experiences such as trauma, deprivation, violence or bereavement can harm brain development, and there has been chronic under-recognition of traumatic brain injury. The research evidence highlights the need to avoid a one-size-fits-all young adult strategy. For example, young adult women mature at a different rate and manifest maturity in a different fashion than young adult men, and they tend to have differing needs and life experiences. The benefits of successfully helping young adults to desist from offending are potentially very large. The volume of crime committed by this age group is higher than for any other adult age group, providing an opportunity for large reductions in the total number of crimes committed.

This report is an overview and analysis of 235 cases which led to serious case reviews (SCRs) between April 2017 and September 2019, because children or young people had died or suffered serious harm, and abuse or neglect was known or suspected (and, in the non-fatal cases, there was cause for concern as to the way in which agencies had worked together to safeguard the child). The reports for 166 of those cases were available. This report gives an overview of the key characteristics of the 2017-19 cases, and then addresses three themes in particular: the problem of neglect, the challenges of practice, and the task of listening to the voice of the child.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) have created a bulletin called 'Learning the Lessons'. This aims to improve police policy and practice and supports the police service to learn from our investigations and reviews into complaints and conduct matters. Each issue of the magazine focuses on a particular theme and brings together a series of case studies, including reflective questions for those working in policing.