In The Presence of Children Training

SFY’s Report: First Do No Harm

Addressing these issues, SFY and the Office of Justice Programs Diagnostic Center, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, released a report entitled First Do No Harm: Model Practices for Law Enforcement When Arresting Parents in the Presence of Children.

Technical Assistance and IPOC Training For Law Enforcement

SFY is committed to ensuring that law enforcement agencies adopt and enforce best practices for interacting with youth. To that end, SFY offers technical assistance to build law enforcement agencies skills, policies, and partnerships with youth-serving organization at the officer and agency level. Strategies for Youth:

• offers a special, one-day, 7 hour training entitled In the Presence of Children
• supplies best practice policies for law enforcement agencies to provide dispatchers, officers, and command staff
• promotes law enforcement agencies’ partnership with agencies that provide trauma-informed and mobile psychological services for children and their families

In 2014, the International Association of Police Chiefs issued Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents” providing protocols for departments to use, helping to address the needs of children at the time, or just after, their parent’s arrest. The report begins with the recognition that “[t]reating a child with compassion and thoughtfulness is not only the proper thing to do, it is also a hallmark of good policing that can have long-term positive benefits for the child and the community.”