You could tell the police sergeants in blue from the lieutenants and chiefs in their white-shirted uniforms. But 11 were there, including Dean Esserman the New Haven Chief of Police, representing their respective precincts for the weekly meeting with about as many clinicians from the Yale Child Study Center as well as staff from the Connecticut Department of Child and Family Services. This remarkable collaboration has run for over 22 years orchestrated by Dr. Steven Marans, a psychoanalyst and professor at Yale and an innovator in the prevention of and intervention in the often devastating effects of childhood trauma.
The meeting began with one sergeant describing a domestic violence incident in which a 6-year-old child witnessed a stabbing in the home. Police, mental health and child protection professionals sat around a large conference table with wooden arm chairs (that barely allowed the utility belted, armed police to nest within them) as if it were a graduate seminar. The university location at Yale meant that the participants discussed not only the safety measures taken but also what evidence-based, clinical interventions had been provided for the family and child, and what else might be done.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-i-sederer-md/mental-health-news_b_5017346.html
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