The North Carolina Child Response Initiative (NCCRI) represents a collaborative effort of the Center for Child & Family Health (CCFH), the Durham Police Department, and Project Safe Neighborhoods to improve safety and security among children and their families who are affected by violence and trauma. The NCCRI is based on the Child Development Community Policing model for police mental health collaboration and the evidence-based Psychological First Aid intervention to meet the needs of traumatized children and families. In Durham, officers work with CCFH clinicians to educate families about childhood trauma and adversity. CCFH clinicians provide direct psycho education, assessment, and treatment services to children and adolescents who are victims of abuse, neglect, crime, and related trauma. Law enforcement officers and mental health clinicians work together to stabilize youth, assess for trauma symptoms, increase service access, improve functioning, and avert further victimization.

NCCRI, funded by the North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission from 2005-2013, allows mental health faculty and staff from the Center for Child and Family Health (CCFH) to work alongside law enforcement officers of the Durham Police Department. All referrals for this project are generated by the police. Mental health faculty and staff on the NCCRI team are available for 24-hour acute response and joint follow up with officers for children and families who are victims and witnesses to violence and crime. The NCCRI protocol provides families with education about the effects of childhood exposure to violence and trauma, as well as diagnostic assessment completed by the team at CCFH offices or other community locations (e.g., police district substations). Officers and clinicians collaborate to increase children's sense of physical safety and psychological security in the wake of their exposure to violence and other crimes. Based on clinical assessment, families are assisted to connect with health care, child protective, law enforcement, court, and related systems and may be provided with referrals for evidence-based treatment for posttraumatic stress and other sequelae of trauma.

This project is supported the N.C. Department of Crime Control & Public Safety / Governor’s Crime Commission.