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North Somerset Council sought to embed reducing parental conflict work across partner agencies working with children and families, including the police. Initially hoping to work with other local authorities to raise awareness of reducing parental conflict across the Avon and Somerset Police area, the North Somerset team found greater success influencing at a more local level. By engaging directly with Police Sergeants and offering face-to-face and remote training, North Somerset Council successfully initiated reducing parental conflict integration. Building trust with the local Violence Reduction Partnership and Youth Offending Service was crucial, leading to ongoing commitment. Moving forward, North Somerset plan to analyse police call-outs linked to parental conflict and distribute practical resources. In addition, North Somerset prioritises sustaining momentum through continued training, communication, and appointing a Police Champion to ensure ongoing improvement and integration of reducing parental conflict principles within the police service.
A large focus for the reducing parental conflict work in North Somerset Council is building relationships with agencies working with children and families, including the police. In addition, an aim for the council is to have reducing parental conflict embedded as business as usual with all partner agencies by the end of the project. To support this ambition, North Somerset designed an accessible questionnaire for partners to identify areas for development. This had an excellent response rate, including from the Avon and Somerset police.
North Somerset Council is one of five local authorities who are served by Avon and Somerset Police. Initial efforts to link up to share North Somerset’s reducing parental conflict offer with a police-related steering group across the wider area was unsuccessful, due to the group disbanding. With engagement across the whole Avon and Somerset policing area presenting difficulties, the focus for North Somerset moved to working directly with local police teams, including the Youth Offending Service and the Violence Reduction Partnership. This led to partnerships being built up within neighbourhood policing teams – resulting in training sessions being booked – as well as direct communication between the Reducing Parental Conflict Coordinator and members of the police who are attending conflict calls.
North Somerset Council contacted Police Sergeants of smaller departments to establish buy-in for reducing parental conflict training, and a commitment to integrative partnership working on reducing parental conflict.
North Somerset provided training directly to teams in face-to-face workshops and developed a remote-learning option consisting of an online video for those who were not able to attend face-to-face training.
“It has been really insightful to learn about where reducing parental conflict can fit within the police service. Partnership work has given me more opportunity to learn about domestic call-outs and the spectrum of work this covers. I am looking forward to continuing to work with the police to support our families in conflict”
North Somerset Council intends to sustain momentum by continuing training and maintaining open communication with the police, building on these improved relationships. Future goals include training all five neighbourhood teams and patrol team as well as establishing a larger bank of practical resources for reducing parental conflict that police can provide to families. North Somerset Council hope to take learnings from their engagement with the police to begin conversations with the local fire service.
To ensure sustainability, North Somerset Council intend to recruit a Police Champion from Patrol Members or Police Community Support Officers (PCSO) who will be able to gather and share ongoing feedback to further develop North Somerset’s reducing parental conflict work. To understand the prevalence of police call-outs that link to RPC, North Somerset Council will work together with the police to review the types of domestic call-outs and disturbances attended.
More specific future work could include the Liaison and Diversion Service, known in Avon and Somerset as Assessment and Support in Custody and Court. Generally, Liaison and Diversion Services (L&D) are located within the NHS and work out of custody suites and courts to offer support to people who are more vulnerable because of mental health challenges, learning disability, autism, substance misuse or brain injury who have entered the criminal justice system. Liaison and Diversion Services aim to identify vulnerabilities early on, improve overall health outcomes and support people in the reduction of reoffending. A greater awareness of reducing parental conflict would enable L&D professionals to share their understanding of the impact of conflict on children within the family with the public they come into contact with, using simple steps and practical advice, particularly when there are multiple competing factors affecting partner stress and anxiety.
The reducing parental conflict team are aware that there are further steps required to widen police participation. The team are confident that police partners are equally keen to develop together over the final year of the project. An illustration of this is shown by the police recently linking North Somerset Council’s reducing parental conflict team with the Lighthouse Safeguarding Unit who process all domestic referrals, which should be the start of an important partnership.
