Abstract

Cumbria’s Child-Centred Policing Team (CCPT) represents a nationally innovative example of child-centred policing that strongly aligns with a public health approach to reducing youth offending and vulnerability (Christmas & Srivastava, 2019; Sidebottom & Tilley, 2023). Through the integration of a dedicated team working with schools, third sector organisations, youth justice and complex safeguarding, the CCPT seeks to prevent harm rather than responding punitively to offending behaviour (van Dijk & Crofts, 2017), through intervening early with lower risk behaviours to prevent escalation into more serious offending over time. Alongside early intervention, the CCPT is strongly rooted in relational approaches, through a well-developed understanding of underlying causes where behaviour is viewed as communication of causative factors such as past trauma, unmet mental health needs, and social exclusion. This approach supports a preventative agenda through building relational safety and trust with CYP and their wider families, to reframe the negative perceptions of policing that can undermine procedural forms of justice. Finally, Child First is the cornerstone of the CCPT’s child-centred response, orienting both the dedicated team and the wider multi-agency system towards a view of children and young people (CYP) as children first and foremost, and as offenders second (Haines and Case, 2015). By embedding voice of the child into systems and processes that involve and affect them, CYP’s voices can be heard and their rights upheld in a way that provides them with a degree of agency and control (UNCRC, 1989). The CCPT represents an outstanding, leading-edge example of a public health approach to policing that upholds Child First (Haines and Case, 2015) as a core and guiding principle. Through relational and child-centred practice that aims to tackle low-level offending through a dedicated team, as well as supporting the most vulnerable CYP through the Missing Trafficked and Exploited Coordinator role, it provides a systemic and innovative model for reducing offending and diverting CYP from the Criminal Justice System. Its holistic focus on prevention and early intervention, strong interagency collaboration, and bespoke relational support, demonstrates meaningful diversion from criminalisation for vulnerable CYP who are at risk. However, system-wide issues - such as digital fragmentation, inconsistent referral pathways, workforce limitations, and irregular organisational processes that impede a Child First agenda and limit procedural forms of justice – are in evidence and must be addressed if a Child First ethos is to be fully realised. Such challenges require sustained investment and clearer national alignment, to maintain and scale this unique, critically important and highly laudable model of preventative policing.