National Center for Children Exposed to Violence

Child Development-Community Policing Program

The Child Development-Community Policing Program (CDCP) is a model collaboration of mental health, law enforcement, juvenile justice, education, judicial and social service professionals who work to heal the wounds that traumatic exposure to violence inflicts on children and families. CDCP had its inception in 1991, when the Child Study Center began its partnership with the City of New Haven and the new Haven Department of Police Service.

The New Haven CDCP Program involves the following core components:

• Cross training for police, mental health and other professionals on the subjects of collaborative responses to trauma, human development and behavior, and policing strategies
• Acute response service, where Child Study Center faculty and trainees are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond with police colleagues to calls involving child victims or witnesses to violence in their homes, schools or the broader community, as well as other potentially traumatic events, such as serious accidents, sudden deaths, fires or animal attacks
• Weekly interdisciplinary program conference, a forum for police, domestic violence advocates, DCF representatives, juvenile justice professionals and clinicians review cases and coordinate their follow-up plans for the children and families referred to the program
• Domestic Violence Home Visit Intervention Project, which provides home visit follow up to children and families affected by domestic violence, with the goals of increasing safety and security, increasing parents’ understanding of children’s responses to domestic violence and increasing children and families’ access to community services.

In New Haven, the CDCP Acute Response Service responds to approximately 15 referrals per week involving children and families exposed to violence, trauma and tragedy. Children of all ages, from birth to 18 are seen through the program. More than a third of all calls to the CDCP Program involve children exposed to domestic violence. More than half of the children referred following domestic violence exposure are under 6 years old.

Police-mental health partnerships based on the CDCP Program have been implemented in other communities across the U.S.