Background to the Research

• The Police Rehabilitation and Retraining Trust's Child and Adolescent Therapy Service was recently set up to provide evidence-based psychological therapies for child and adolescent psychopathology, caused either directly by service-related incidents, or indirectly via parental psychopathology. Police officers were previously reluctant to allow their children to be referred to statutory child and mental health services.
  

Research Approach

• This paper examines the clinical approaches adopted by this specialist service. It also examines how an ongoing and current threat of further trauma impacts on treatment provision and on the establishment of the therapeutic alliance.
• The service accepts referrals from relevant professionals, as well as self or parental referrals. All referrals are made to the Service Coordinator, and then referred on for initial assessment, which occurs within 14 days. The child or young person then attends for treatment.
  

Main Findings

• The Troubles in NI have made policing a high risk profession, but no official figures exist in relation to those who have suffered psychological injuries, such as PTSD.
• The change from the RUC to the PSNI has been a difficult and emotionally charged process. Problems experienced by officers were found to be having major impacts on their surrounding family.
• Referrals to the service have steadily increased in frequency, with the age range being evenly distributed between 5-18 years of age. The nature of presenting problems has been wide ranging.
• As well as age and developmentally appropriate issues, the children of police officers in NI also experience specific and unique stressors, such as home and school moves, changes of peer groups, inconsistent presence of a parent, and their parent being the target of terrorist attacks.
• The child's view of the world as comprehensible, of people as benevolent, and themselves as invulnerable is drastically and often permanently altered.
• Mental health problems caused by parental psychopathology have additional complicating factors, such as the child internalising their own problems, the sending of mixed moral messages by encouraging a child to lie about their parent's occupation, and necessary safety routines at home.
• A police officer's child often has no 'safe place' in their life at all.
• The Child and Adolescent Therapy Service provides treatment within the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy model of psychotherapy, which has proven to be well received by the children.

Conclusions

• The dramatic changes in the police service, necessitated by the peace process, have had a direct impact on officers and their families.
• For police officers and their families, the threat of terrorist attacks has not lessened, but has only become more vague and less specific.
• The Child and Adolescent Therapy Service will continue to provide specialist clinical support for the children and young people who attend it.