The acclaimed Child Development-Community Policing CD-CP Program will be replicated in Buffalo, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon. The program, developed jointly by the New Haven Department of Police Service and the Yale Child Study Center, provides training and support to police officers and mental health professionals to help them intervene effectively in the lives of children, and facilitates access to mental health services for children and families exposed to violence.
The cities were chosen because of their proven leadership and commitment to children. Representatives from each of the four sites will come to New Haven for training to familiarize them with the program model and to begin a process of developing similar programs in their own communities; the first representative, from Charlotte, visited May 20-23. In addition to the training in New Haven, the staff of the CD-CP Program will provide ongoing consultation and technical assistance during the next year to support developing programs. Training and consultation to the four cities is the second phase of a three-year program replication project. This phase is supported by a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The CD-CP Program "exemplifies the benefits of collaboration between universities and cities and between mental health professionals, police and others who are confronted by the issues facing children and families in urban America," comments Dr. Donald J. Cohen, director of the Yale Child Study Center, who jointly conceived the idea of a police-mental health collaboration in 1991 with New Haven Police Chief Nicholas Pastore.
Since the program began, police have referred more than 600 children to the CD-CP Program Consultation Service. The program also has been developing new strategies with probation, the schools and Department of Children and Families to intervene with children and adolescents who have moved from the experience of witnessing to involvement in perpetrating violence.
"The CD-CP Program capitalized on the unique opportunity for police and mental health professionals to work together in considering and affecting the welfare of children who are at greatest risk of becoming involved in the cycle of violence," comments Steven Marans, the Harris Assistant Professor of Child Psychoanalysis and coordinator of the CD-CP Program. The replication project is an opportunity to extend an innovative model of collaborative work between police and mental health professionals to communities across the country, he notes.
"The Yale Child Development-New Haven Community Policing Program has been a godsend for New Haven area children who have been exposed to violence," notes U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro D- Connecticut. "I hope that these four cities are only the beginning of a movement to bring mental health services to all American children who are vulnerable and need our protection."