Event Overview

In convening the event, the Authority wanted to demonstrate a commitment to understanding and addressing issues regarding the impact of trauma, listening to lived experience and sharing learning of current practice across public bodies, as well as learning from expert research and insights from across the world.

The event focused on three key considerations:

• What can the Authority, Forensic Services and Police Scotland learn from elsewhere?
• What currently works well in the policing system in Scotland?
• Where could we improve?

A range of stakeholders and partners supported the event through attendance and contribution. Critically there were a range of staff and officers in attendance, it wouldn’t have been possible to deliver such a positive, and challenging, event without the support of our workforce, unions, and staff associations.

Key speakers at the event included Audrey Nicoll MSP, Dr Karen Goodall of University of Edinburgh, Gill Moreton of Lifelines Scotland, Dr Jess Miller of Police Care UK, and Vernon Herron of Baltimore Police Department. Additionally, delegates heard from partners such as Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Scottish Ambulance Service and Walking with the Wounded.

Event evaluation highlights that the most impactful session of the programme for most attendees was hearing from officers and staff directly. The sharing of lived and personal experience of trauma as a result of delivering their role from four representatives of our workforce was a very powerful reminder of the value of the event itself, and a reaffirming of the need to focus on continually improving support to officer and staff.