Safeguarding in the Police - Superintendent & Somerset Commander Dickon Turner

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Welcome to the P Pod

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Steve Macabee - Host
Welcome to the P Pod, the Partnership Podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. Now, we spoke in one of our first episodes about the partnership and what it is, how it functions, and what the role of the business unit plays in supporting the wider partnership agencies. So today we're speaking with Superintendent Dick Turner from the Somerset Police Commander for Somerset.

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Steve Macabee - Host
And importantly for us here today, a member of the ACP executive group to talk to us about safeguarding in the police. Dick, welcome and thank you for joining us today.

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Superintendent Dickon Turner
Hi, Steve. Thanks an absolutely pleasure.

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Steve Macabee - Host
It's great to have you here. So in terms of the role that the police play in safeguarding children, it's obviously very wide and it covers a broad spectrum of policing responsibilities. But before we've kind of really focus on that big it's funny a little bit about about you if we can and your role so what is your role?

00:01:09:07 - 00:01:31:05
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Sure. So right now, as you said, I'm Somerset commander. That means I'm in charge of neighborhood policing across the county, so I have about 300 staff. Peter SOS, PQRS and another rank. So we look after our communities, our neighborhoods across the county from east to west, north to south. But on top of that, a couple of I have a couple of other roles, so a couple of them are slightly left field.

00:01:31:05 - 00:01:55:16
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So I'm in charge of rural crime for the county. I'm also in charge of problem solving. So that says an internal process by which we assess and manage and intervene around community problems. But thirdly, the reason I'm here today is one of the so where is currently chair. They say a Somerset Safeguarding Children's partnership. And as you said, the police play a critical role in in safeguarding and child protection.

00:01:55:18 - 00:02:02:07
Superintendent Dickon Turner
We're one of the three main statutory agencies according to work together to safeguard children. So and that's why I'm here today.

00:02:02:11 - 00:02:11:23
Steve Macabee - Host
But I think and I know you've been very involved in terms of safeguarding children in Somerset for many years, even before this problem. Yeah, I know you think you said to help participate with the training of certain things.

00:02:12:00 - 00:02:35:22
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So when I was delivering training in terms of child protection, that was actually in South Gloucestershire. So I was I'll just quickly run through my career in safeguarding. So I first encountered it in 2002 when I became a member of the child protection team in Bristol and working out of the place. You know, it was strange. I, I joined on a two week sort of attachment just to see what it was like.

00:02:35:22 - 00:02:56:11
Superintendent Dickon Turner
That turned into a year. I became a detective, and more or less since then I've been in a safeguarding role of one kind or another ever since really? So, yeah. Detective Sergeant. Detective Inspector. As a Chief Inspector, which is my nostro that was covering the whole of Avon and Somerset in terms of managing risk from some of our offenders in our community.

00:02:56:13 - 00:03:17:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So risk I very much see as the flipside of the same coin is safeguarding. So, you know, the police, one of their core roles is protecting the public. Public protection was part of my role in that spear as it is now, really. So yeah, in many ways at different levels. I've had my finger in a safeguarding pie.

00:03:17:22 - 00:03:20:21
Steve Macabee - Host
Have you always been within the police or have you had sort of previous backgrounds?

00:03:20:23 - 00:03:42:17
Superintendent Dickon Turner
No, I was a very young looking fresh out of university recruit in 1993. I didn't know much about the world, really, if I'm honest. But yeah, doing the place and reading and put my uniform on. Funny shaped hat walked and drove around the streets of reading and then, yeah, you learn the ropes from there. And so yeah, my career as far as very much been in the police.

00:03:42:17 - 00:03:43:07
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah.

00:03:43:09 - 00:04:03:04
Steve Macabee - Host
As I mentioned during the introduction, this episode of See, You represent the Police as one of the statutory safeguarding partners, as you mentioned, alongside our colleagues in the local Authority and Health as part of that executive group. And like you mentioned, you were chair of the executive group this point in time. So so in terms of the executive group and your role within it, what does that really kind of entail?

00:04:03:04 - 00:04:06:18
Steve Macabee - Host
What does that look like and sort of what role do the police play within that?

00:04:06:20 - 00:04:31:16
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, so so it's important that the police are represented at every level of safeguarding. So from the piece. So to know that community through to the child protection specialist detectives, which I was once, we still still obviously have those specialist teams investigating child abuse in its many forms across the county and even in Somerset more widely. And then there are more specialist departments.

00:04:31:20 - 00:05:09:09
Superintendent Dickon Turner
The sexual exploitation or online grooming, child abuse imagery on the Internet and that sort of thing, as well as the offender management department I talked about earlier and more senior level. That strategic partnership influence is also important. So I guess to distill it into a sentence or two is about working in partnership with the other agencies to make Somerset a safer place as possible for children and young people that live here, go to school here, you know, perhaps work here and visit here.

00:05:09:09 - 00:05:57:18
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So the strategic role is me ensuring that the subgroups in the partnership are effective, that my agency attends and contributes to those both in terms of data, knowledge and expertise, and then where issues arise, I can influence those teams. I trailed off earlier to make sure that their understanding where vulnerable children live, that we're reacting and responding properly, gathering information properly, sharing information properly and work collectively with house social care partners all levels to yeah, to perhaps take children into police protection, to investigate allegations they make to to manage offenders so they can't defend against children so much.

00:05:57:20 - 00:06:25:12
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, it's quite a long list I suppose. But in terms of chairing the partnership executive, it's just making sure everyone comes together. The lessons learned from mistakes either made elsewhere in the country or more locally, that there's a training delivery, there's a plan and yeah, a set of objectives to to grow and improve and constantly seek to be the best we can.

00:06:25:14 - 00:06:58:15
Steve Macabee - Host
From my perspective, in terms of the development of the partnership, from working together, like you mentioned, these kind of two things really. One is essentially three agencies having to come together and work as one erm in terms of responsibility to safeguard children, but also I think one of the real benefits of it is like you mentioned, send it right from the executive side, from the strategic level, right the way down through all partner agencies and the ability to feed, you know, feed that information, feed those changes in both directions which you know is something that very much happens within in Somerset.

00:06:58:15 - 00:06:59:24
Steve Macabee - Host
And the executive listen completely.

00:06:59:24 - 00:07:23:12
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I think the strength of any partnership, including Somerset's, is that we come at it from a different angle, you know, So I wear a policy hat which tends to perhaps be a bit more excuse me, maybe, maybe slightly cynical, suspicious. We think about criminal evidence. We think about offending, we think about risk. We think about it in our communities.

00:07:23:14 - 00:08:05:19
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Social workers, in my experience that very much around keeping families together, that's where children thrive best. It's about, you know, assessing the family in the child holistically around their environment and so on. And health obviously have that medical, mental health. And another element right from birth, midwifery, health, visiting or at GP's and so on, especially services. So with all those different, has we come together with different specialisms to hopefully understand the landscape, the trends and the best ways to manage threats to children and families across the county?

00:08:05:19 - 00:08:07:08
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yes, that's what we tried to do anyway.

00:08:07:11 - 00:08:23:18
Steve Macabee - Host
Yeah, no, that I think it works and I think it works well. So there's always, always scope for development over time and fluidly, but I think it does work well for me. Firstly, I think it's been a really positive shift with working together of really kind of forcing everybody to come together and work together because we hear it so often, don't we?

00:08:23:18 - 00:08:25:00
Steve Macabee - Host
We've all got to work together.

00:08:25:02 - 00:08:45:18
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I definitely feel we work together in Somerset. I mean, I might be the chair now, but actually it was the director of trauma services last time. I suspect when I move on and it'll be the end of our health slate and it rotates like that. So it's not a you know, in the past it was very much a transition services sort of bag and we tagged along.

00:08:45:19 - 00:09:07:03
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Perhaps that's slightly unkind, but, you know, it's I mean, it was they led and it was their back. But working with Clare and Sheila, as I do, you know, we're able to question each other, to challenge each other. But, but we get on that professional basis, I've had cause to speak to, to Clare or her predecessor around issues that the police have encountered with social services.

00:09:07:03 - 00:09:20:09
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And equally they've come back to me where things haven't perhaps gone as well as they might have done, and I've tried to influence and unpick that. So you know, it should be a place of mutual support, but also that kind of critical friend across agency boundaries really.

00:09:20:10 - 00:09:39:16
Steve Macabee - Host
I was just thinking one of, one of the challenges I know when working together was update in two 2018 about in the partnership arrangements were organizations such as yourselves working across several local authority areas. And obviously here we have you know, the Avon and Somerset Police working across five local authority areas. What sort of challenges have been?

00:09:39:18 - 00:10:09:04
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I think the biggest challenges that our yeah, that lack of coterminous boundaries means that we experience different local authorities doing things differently. And some of the funding arrangements, the sharing arrangements, the subgroup expectations are different and we have to sort of try and navigate our way around that, sometimes influence that too to help us stick to our objectives and to our legal obligations.

00:10:09:06 - 00:10:36:05
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, it's just a slightly fuzzy landscape, I suppose, but we're used to that. It's to some extent because we have two fire brigades, we have two different mental health authorities, lots of different hospital trusts, another boundaries, I'm sure elsewhere. So we just have to work out who we are, who we need to talk to, when and how. And yeah, one thing I could have said should have said, as there are police representatives on nearly all of the subgroups of the partnership as well.

00:10:36:07 - 00:10:54:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So certainly a the child Death review panel, the CPR group and the learning and improvement group. I know I think they used to be one in the early help group. I'm not sure if we've managed to fill that recently, but, you know, so we're hopefully at most of the tables.

00:10:54:22 - 00:10:56:01
Steve Macabee - Host
And the child exploitation.

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Superintendent Dickon Turner
Subgroup as well. That's led. Yes. So Julian does a really good job of leading that subgroup.

00:11:00:07 - 00:11:17:17
Steve Macabee - Host
Or presuming in terms of working across different local authority areas. It's got the challenge, I'd say, of working with lots of different partners and like say as well with with health colleagues, with the ICDs, they're also sort of working across several areas as well. But I guess are there opportunities within that to learn from, from other areas?

00:11:17:17 - 00:11:38:17
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, I think there are occasions where we've been able to say, well, actually look, South Gloucestershire this way, that seems to work really well or, you know, don't do it like they do it kind of thing. So yeah, and that we have a partnership manager as well working within the place who I'm sure Alison Jenkins as he ties in with all the different boards so she's able to say see that as well.

00:11:38:20 - 00:12:07:08
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I mean I'm quite lucky because of that background I spoke about from a all the way through, you know, safeguarding roles. But I think a lot of the place executive leaders across the other parts of the the force area perhaps don't have that background. So Alison is there to support them in a way that perhaps I've not had the need of quite so much so, You know, I feel quite lucky to be able to hopefully slide in fairly comfortably to to the role with with that background.

00:12:07:08 - 00:12:17:00
Superintendent Dickon Turner
But yeah, it's, I think it's quite a tough gig to take on if you're not if you don't have it really because it's quite specialist isn't it. And all agencies speak a different language of course as all that and.

00:12:17:05 - 00:12:28:20
Steve Macabee - Host
Yeah absolutely some and I'm, I'm thinking it as well And in terms of the exact group you've been member and chair of the executive for too long. Two years now.

00:12:28:24 - 00:12:40:00
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So I came to Somerset as commander in May 2021. So I've been here. So yeah, two and a half years and chair of the exact for about a year I think.

00:12:40:02 - 00:13:00:04
Steve Macabee - Host
You know, within that you've seen the partnership developing and I think nationally it is a developing partnerships and you know, it was sort of the, the partnership come together and Stormin Norman former North Yeah I'm just thinking in terms of kind of what you see as the the move forward for the partnerships that the development area as well.

00:13:00:06 - 00:13:08:19
Steve Macabee - Host
Are there any areas you think actually these are bits where either locally within Somerset or broadly you think actually these this will be a really good area for the partnership to really develop and further?

00:13:08:19 - 00:13:35:16
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, I think there's probably scope for all five of the Somerset partnerships to come together a bit more tightly and formally learn from each other and share resource share best practice. I think potentially there's scope, I wouldn't say necessarily say urgent need, but there might be some benefit to be had from agencies almost spending some time with the other agencies.

00:13:35:16 - 00:14:06:10
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So whether that's practitioner level or senior leader level, just to understand the landscape, the constraints, the opportunities, the landscape they're working in, but also to almost come in not, not to not do assurance or inspection work because we wouldn't be the experts, but to almost ask the stupid question. And that can sometimes prompt professionals and practitioners who've been doing that a long time to go, Yeah, why do we do that or why is it that way?

00:14:06:10 - 00:14:16:18
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And, and that can sometimes produce some surprising results, I think so that so I'd like to see that develop over the next year or so, if that's possible. Again, difficult because we're all busy and maybe.

00:14:16:20 - 00:14:31:07
Steve Macabee - Host
Yeah, we are, but, but it's important and definitely I think that question of why, why do you do it is always really key. And I know certainly I've been off the end of previous roles I've had and it does make you stop for a minute go.

00:14:31:09 - 00:14:32:05
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Because.

00:14:32:07 - 00:14:33:07
Steve Macabee - Host
Because we've always thought they might.

00:14:33:07 - 00:14:36:01
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Not because as my manager does it and.

00:14:36:03 - 00:14:36:15
Steve Macabee - Host
That's what we're being.

00:14:36:15 - 00:14:38:13
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Told to do. Manage it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:38:13 - 00:14:59:22
Steve Macabee - Host
No, it is true. And I know from a, from a training perspective regionally, all the training managers from the events, from say, area, we do get together regularly and it looks so agreeing in terms of training standards, learning outcomes approaches. And for me and on a leave for my colleagues in the other parts of region found it really valuable.

00:14:59:24 - 00:15:06:09
Steve Macabee - Host
I say actually just, just really coming together to say actually let's start working together on this one and share good practice.

00:15:06:11 - 00:15:28:05
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Well, and actually just save a load of time from take on. Because if they're already delivering a course on criminal exploitation, you're just about to embark on designing one. Well, why not take our idea or help to develop it or tweak it or nick it from Nottingham? Or what is the we now in times of precious resource and high demand, let's make life easy for ourselves.

00:15:28:11 - 00:15:30:07
Steve Macabee - Host
I like to call it sharing best practice person.

00:15:30:07 - 00:15:33:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
They like stealing, but hey.

00:15:33:21 - 00:15:52:19
Steve Macabee - Host
Well let's get into the the role of of policing then in terms of safeguarding. Like I mentioned at the start, it's obviously threaded through everything that police do. But in terms of they have in Somerset area and what are some of the sort of key areas in terms of safeguarding children that the police kind of really focus on.

00:15:52:21 - 00:16:12:03
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And yeah, so I suppose the most common situation we would come across and would hopefully do the right thing is around domestic abuse, probably saying we've got a lot of calls about domestic abuse, some of it's violent, some of it isn't controlling behaviors to bring new concepts, I suppose, or certainly a new criminal offense in the recent years.

00:16:12:05 - 00:16:33:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So that's where we'd hope that our colleagues react, not just to the the guy that presents himself and the victim saying him and arresting him. That's sort of textbook, you know, classic example. But actually, where were the kids in this? Are the kids in this with out where they end, where they awake to hear it? You know? Well, they got to say about it was time environment.

00:16:33:20 - 00:16:51:01
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Like I looked in the garden never looked in the fridge. Every is a dangerous dog, you know, just opening our eyes a little bit more widely. Take the blinkers off away from criminal offense evidence, arrest, prosecute. Let's open our mind a little bit out. So that's that's probably the most common thing.

00:16:51:03 - 00:17:11:22
Steve Macabee - Host
And sorry, do you mind if I'd sure pick up on that from an excellent point. Obviously, like you say, the Domestic Abuse Act came in in April 21 and I know guidance, call it what come out from the government on that, but have you how have you sort of seen that interpreted into practice like so in terms of and also responding to children as legal victims there of of that domestic abuse?

00:17:12:01 - 00:17:20:18
Steve Macabee - Host
So that definition of domestic abuse, including controlling coercive behavior. Now, how have you sort of seen that sort of working in practice.

00:17:20:20 - 00:17:46:18
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And so I guess I'm a little away from the front line, but I think we've probably got some work to do on that in that regard. So we've recently rolled out something or domestic data matters or domestic abuse matters training. So most virtually all frontline officers will have had that now included coercive control behavior, that included consideration around the children.

00:17:46:20 - 00:18:14:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I think we could gradually getting better at recording the existence of children, their names, dates of birth, you know, where they go to school, perhaps the GP, that sort of thing, and considering how an incident may have affected them. So we use a phone called Bragg Blue Read, I'm migraine, a kind of way of just describing level of vulnerability and risk which are now safeguarding unit, then get to sort of assess and consider a risk around it.

00:18:14:20 - 00:18:47:04
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And then that informs their decision around sharing with social services and schools. So that's getting better. But again, I think we've got an increasingly young and inexperienced workforce. So you'll be familiar nationally around large numbers of place uplift. So just by way of context, even in Somerset have grown by about grown by about 460 officers and in order to get to that stage, we've had to recruit something like 1200 officers.

00:18:47:06 - 00:19:10:02
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So obviously most of those come in in uniform, just as I did many years ago. I spoke earlier. But you you're very inexperienced. You know, most of them will be in their twenties. So to to to be able to ask them to take the blinkers off and, you know, scan the horizon around the home, for example. In a situation like that, it's quite a big ask, you know.

00:19:10:02 - 00:19:14:09
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So I think that's why I say we've got a bit of a way to go, probably.

00:19:14:11 - 00:19:18:01
Steve Macabee - Host
Thank you, Sergeant. Drop the thought is good to pick up around the dress consensus.

00:19:18:01 - 00:19:41:00
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I would say find more recently police have had to, like other agencies, grapple with new ways in which criminals will seek to make money. So, you know, the risky way to make money from drugs is to sell it yourself, a way to reduce, to increase the distance between the police and the evidence and yourself is to get other people to do it.

00:19:41:00 - 00:20:08:10
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And, you know, one, a target audience for some of the more clued in drug dealers is to recruit children. So criminal exploitation we certainly see on the streets of Somerset. So and particularly Bridgewater and Tunis at the moment Yeovil as well and we've seen in Glastonbury in the frame. So you know the methodology being they'll recruit young people either locally or in the bigger towns and cities around the UK, send them.

00:20:08:13 - 00:20:28:11
Superintendent Dickon Turner
These used to be by train is by car or taxi down to our towns to set up a sort of small drug dealing network there and the county lines methodology, the line just making the phone line as simple as that. So we've had to catch up with that, get a bit clever that I think we're quite good at it now.

00:20:28:13 - 00:20:50:22
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So that's one element of it. The Internet obviously creates and perpetuates new ways of exploit teen children. You know, in the past you'd have to have mates, a child groom them and their parents, get them on their own to to physically abuse. And now I can do all online. They can be in their bedroom parents in a way, or the other side of the world.

00:20:50:22 - 00:20:54:07
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So, you know, having to try and adapt to that as well.

00:20:54:09 - 00:21:16:20
Steve Macabee - Host
Is yeah, there are a lot of challenges on that, particularly in today's world, like, say, and and actually I think just go back to where we were earlier in terms of that partnership working. And I think I think that's been really key and in quite close partnership working particularly around like said you mentioned exploitation there and not see it wasn't that long ago we really started to to recognize exploitation.

00:21:16:22 - 00:21:30:05
Steve Macabee - Host
Yeah. Come from Rotherham, from Rochdale and originally think about child sexual exploitation and and I think that about need for particularly police and local authority and social care to be working really closely together on that because it is complex, isn't it?

00:21:30:05 - 00:22:00:13
Superintendent Dickon Turner
It is. It is, yeah. I mean it would be true to say that nationally crime figures have dropped over the last 1020 years. You know, if I'm far less likely now to have your car stolen or your house burgled, but the complexity of crime at the same time has increased exponentially. So, you know, ten, 20 years ago, we probably wouldn't have been dealing with a 15 year old lad carrying a machete, dealing drugs who's both a victim of exploitation and a perpetrator of serious violence or other crimes.

00:22:00:15 - 00:22:15:19
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, I guess it gets quite tricky to work out, you know, when to prosecute, when safeguard may be a bit of both, you know, and clearly, you definitely need advice of youth offending in social services and mental health of Barnardo's or whoever else as around in that arena to to solve the problems.

00:22:15:21 - 00:22:36:20
Steve Macabee - Host
Just out of interest out of curiosity really, I mean talked about sort of technology and an abuse of children and I know you're broadly going through the course prosecution for sexual offenses for adults and children at a very low in terms of the successful prosecution. Obviously adds a lot of a lot of tech, a lot of technicality to the policing role.

00:22:36:22 - 00:22:52:21
Steve Macabee - Host
How have you found it? Although it's an increasing need, have you found it easier potentially around the evidence around sort of online abuse or. No, I'm just thinking in terms of, you know, getting that evidence of somebody's laptop and the information on there or or not?

00:22:52:23 - 00:23:18:00
Superintendent Dickon Turner
A yes and no. So perhaps in the past you'd have relied solely upon the disclosure from a child, which was either the reluctant or there was some difficulty with the credibility reliability of that disclosure, perhaps, or is one word against another. So, yes, an offender may have or a victim may have an audit trail on their phone of messaging or contact or geolocation data, that sort of stuff.

00:23:18:00 - 00:23:50:02
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So that can be incriminating. Absolutely. But just as the devices become more available, the people who use them can become clever, deleting, manipulating the data so it can become more difficult to prosecute. You know, you might you might go looking for it, but won't find it. And I think the future looks interesting as well in terms of I you know, you can create a child abuse image without seeing the child virtually or in person.

00:23:50:04 - 00:24:12:21
Superintendent Dickon Turner
You know, you're harvesting images, you're making videos and potentially making alibis for yourself, which the police then have to try and determine whether it's real or it's not real. Who created it when that becomes quite tricky. So I think the future looks a bit scary potentially, but equally presents opportunities for us to become more efficient by using AI to sift.

00:24:12:21 - 00:24:16:08
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And so, you know, evidence or a material or.

00:24:16:11 - 00:24:21:00
Steve Macabee - Host
Yeah, now I have two young daughters, the features and scans.

00:24:21:02 - 00:24:22:21
Superintendent Dickon Turner
That I have, you know, it does.

00:24:22:23 - 00:24:43:12
Steve Macabee - Host
And I think also just in terms of legislation, I think that is the need a lot of catching up with this because, you know, I was reading I think at start of this week about there were some girls in one part of the country where suddenly there were there were indecent images of, I think, ten, 11 year olds going around, which actually that use the face of that of the child.

00:24:43:15 - 00:25:06:03
Steve Macabee - Host
But it was it was something else. His body and and even more so than that, I think moving forward is potentially just completely generating images that aren't of real people, but very, very realistic. And, you know, I think that's going to be a real challenge going forward in the future. So I know we've obviously talked about sort of, you know, criminal investigation and prosecution and the detective side of things.

00:25:06:03 - 00:25:15:04
Steve Macabee - Host
I know that as well. The police do a lot in terms of working with families and supporting families, particularly from the community side of things that you mentioned at the start that you want to talk about.

00:25:15:06 - 00:25:47:02
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yes. So my piece, Yes, Aujla, our neighborhood policing teams are used very often, have a good remote correlation with local youth workers, charities, social workers, teachers and other safeguarding needs in schools. So they have a fairly good understanding of the more vulnerable or problematic children from sort of missing from school or missing from home. Nonattendance, exclusion, behavior, antisocial behavior, those sorts of issues.

00:25:47:02 - 00:26:14:02
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And I think, you know, they've got a generally fairly good picture of which families are involved. The siblings of the older ones are a problem. And I know we're heavily involved in the Somerset One teams, which you'll be familiar with. So we're regularly sharing information in that respect. So yeah, I think again, that's something I think we'll see grow and improve in policing and other agencies in the near future around early intervention and preventative work.

00:26:14:04 - 00:26:45:22
Superintendent Dickon Turner
You know, I think historically and understandably, hard pressed agencies with limited time and money in an they're focusing on fighting the fires. So the most risky, the statutory cases, you know, we've got to take that child away. We've got to go to court for that. We've got to prevent that. That's really tricky. But I think with the data we are beginning to share en masse, I think there's a great deal of scope to predict which families, which children are likely to become problematic in the near future and work on them at an earlier stage.

00:26:45:24 - 00:27:07:15
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So, you know, whether it's family intervention, whether that's youth work, whether that's mental health support, an earlier stage, you know, community involvement with the policing, whatever it might look like, has got to be better than waiting till on child protection plan or wait until they're arrested for something serious. I think so. That's what I'd like to see. But yeah, and a lot of it depends on funding, of course.

00:27:07:15 - 00:27:43:08
Steve Macabee - Host
Yeah. I have to say that I've worked with many community policing over the years and I have to say that the knowledge they have of their local community sometimes is second to none. It's, you know, it's incredible, really. And like I say, that the knowledge they have of families and the situations and you have to say more of that, that real understanding towards that and you know that empathy towards that and that that real light you mentioned, the one teams on police have been very heavily involved previously in team run the schools, for example, really linking him with those local communities of services as well as families.

00:27:43:10 - 00:27:52:03
Steve Macabee - Host
And that drive they have sometimes for some of the families, you know, to make sure that the right support is put in place, which is which is great. I think a credit to the to the force.

00:27:52:03 - 00:28:13:02
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah. And I can think of a few local projects that we CISOs have led in the setting up of. I mean, there was something called the Bird Box project in Minehead where there was a bit of a down hill area around a recreational area and, and SPCA so got families together and, and then there's local volunteer and some bird boxes.

00:28:13:02 - 00:28:31:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
They had a bit of a day where they all got together and painted bird boxes. But that was linked in with some of the sort of support charity work. And it's brought the community together in a way that might not have been achieved otherwise. You know, I think sometimes the the sort of formal engagement of statutory agencies can have people away.

00:28:31:22 - 00:28:53:22
Superintendent Dickon Turner
But if it is a bit less formal and it's is not seen as a it doesn't have a place for social work or, you know, for us a label say people are less suspicious of it, more likely to get involved, maybe feed them, you know, they come and that they know they learn a bit more about what agencies do or they learn a bit more about their neighbors and that can engender a bit of pride in the community, that sort of thing.

00:28:53:22 - 00:29:00:21
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And that can create, you know, dividends. Difficult to measure, but it it's yeah, has really for some time.

00:29:01:01 - 00:29:19:08
Steve Macabee - Host
A stamp on that. I know the police have been doing lots of work over the last few years around a trauma informed approach to working with families and well, not just working with families but but working with people. And how have you kind of seen that that developed? But for anybody that doesn't know about sort of trauma informed approach, what is it?

00:29:19:08 - 00:29:20:07
Steve Macabee - Host
What does it look like?

00:29:20:07 - 00:29:54:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I think I think I know. So there's one one size fits all definition, actually. But this is about the idea that your your past adverse experiences affect the way you deal with stressful situations in particular. So, you know, as a child, if your dad was in prison or your mum suffered domestic abuse or perhaps your parents were drug users or, you know, had mental health difficulties, those things are dramatic to live with, you know, and in the four walls or the separation or whatever, or it can be outside the home equally as well, but exploitation or bullying or whatever.

00:29:54:22 - 00:30:19:14
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And that can create woman in early age or so. It creates difficulty in brain development and social development, you know, pathways, even effects. So as you grow up into adult life, you're some of your responses to stress are almost hardwired. So when a policeman turns up to ask you a question or to arrest you, perhaps you're more likely to react badly to that than someone who hasn't had those experiences.

00:30:19:20 - 00:30:46:11
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Or a social worker knocks on the door to to begin an assessment instead of, you know, inviting them as an as a professional and answering their questions openly. Perhaps you may in a more later kick off because it's either just them and you've had those adverse experiences. So a trauma informed practice or trauma informed approaches is about hopefully equipping training professionals to become aware of that and adjust some of their practice to take account of it.

00:30:46:11 - 00:31:20:23
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So and instead of the classic, instead of asking kind of what's wrong with you, the question is what's happened to you? And is I kind of turning it on its head a little bit and going in in order to get the job done that I need to get done to understand risk, vulnerability, threat. It's about getting under the skin of that a little bit rather than seeing the person as the behavior, seeing the behavior as a symptom of something else, not to necessarily excuse violent or aggressive outbursts or criminal behavior, but to just maybe a reason rather than an excuse.

00:31:20:23 - 00:31:34:22
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And so, yeah, the police are starting to roll some training out. I think we're still at the raising awareness stage rather than the formal training or a formal sort of accredited practitioner stage. But yeah, we're definitely signed to talk about it.

00:31:34:24 - 00:31:49:00
Steve Macabee - Host
And it's good. It's starting to see that again. Being joined up more miles in a although the event yesterday actually where a school we're talking about thrive and informal approach and how that's really sort of changed the ethos of the school. And like I say, if we can embed that more.

00:31:49:00 - 00:31:49:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And more differently.

00:31:49:23 - 00:31:52:11
Steve Macabee - Host
That wider understanding, then I think think the better.

00:31:52:11 - 00:32:28:11
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And I guess tied in with that as well as a point to where sometimes police can in their operation create trauma, you know, through through necessary tactics in order to protect ourselves or the wider community. For example, I don't know. There's a domestic incident that says he's got a gun who may or may not have a gun. And so the police obviously have to respond in a certain way, which may involved master helmeted firearms officers kicking the door off, you know, barking dogs, scary stuff with this kid in the back room kind of thing.

00:32:28:17 - 00:32:56:00
Superintendent Dickon Turner
We create trauma, but, you know, we have to do it. But even those firearms officers can potentially adjust their approach to the incident at hand. And with that knowledge in hand, if that makes sense, clearly they still go point guns and it goes off. But, you know, afterwards or during that encounter, you know, they can start to understand the impacts of the their practice as well.

00:32:56:02 - 00:33:30:23
Steve Macabee - Host
Well, I think Kim, I think just wanted to kind of wrap up, if we can. And and also recognizing as we were talking about for recording this, you are rapidly hurtling towards your retirement from the force. Yeah. So congratulations on that. And I think hopefully a good opportunity to sort of if you've got any pearls of wisdom to share, I just want to if you've got if you're sort of talking to anybody now, listen to this, thinking about potentially taking up a role either within the police force or within safeguarding children and what advice would you give them?

00:33:31:00 - 00:33:59:19
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Yeah, interesting. Well, I could probably write a book, but yeah, 30 years in the place, some patrolling the streets, some in uniform mostly. And in some of the odd roles. Yeah. Safeguarding has been provided some of my most challenging times, my most memorable of times, but also my most stressful times, but equally rewarding time. So I've, I've loved working in safeguarding child protection, and it runs through me a bit like a stick.

00:33:59:19 - 00:34:23:09
Superintendent Dickon Turner
A rock. Really? Yeah. Some harrowing stories. Personally, it's funny, I've I've always found it easier to deal with the horror of the story, even the blood and guts. And, you know, I've been to babies post-mortems and all sorts of horrible things. You know, I wouldn't necessarily wish on anybody. But that's that's part of the role that I whether I wear a mask or not, I'm not sure.

00:34:23:09 - 00:34:50:08
Superintendent Dickon Turner
But you learn to cope with that. That's that's not easy, but it's easier for me than dealing with the emotions of others affected. So, I mean, one of the stories I sometimes tell is an eight year old boy was raped by his grandfather, told me in video interview, very matter of fact, about what had happened to him, that the detail of the sexual encounter on his bed and granddad repeated occasions.

00:34:50:10 - 00:35:18:15
Superintendent Dickon Turner
But the boy was fairly easy to deal with. And I slide, you know, overtly there and then unaffected, particularly emotionally by what had happened to him. But his mother, whose father was the perpetrator in the middle of all this, was bereft. You know, she was asking me questions and I'm in my thirties with very little children. But my real personal experience dealing with anything like this, you know, she's asking me what what does she say to a boy when he grows up?

00:35:18:15 - 00:35:36:12
Superintendent Dickon Turner
What? How do you deal with her dad, her mum standing by? Her dad always condoned it, but she's not leaving him is. So how does she deal with all that family? The earthquake was just tough. And in our family, how she picking up, that's really you know, she's in tears. She's shaken, looking to me for answers that I found that difficult.

00:35:36:12 - 00:36:00:14
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So, yeah. And those I think, though, that's probably quite similar for a lot of practitioners in this space of trauma. I think you have to accept you pick up some vicarious trauma. In that sort of case, you know, sticks with you. I've seen images from the Internet and offenders phones and yeah, documents that I wish I hadn't seen.

00:36:00:15 - 00:36:28:00
Superintendent Dickon Turner
You know, they, they stick with me and yeah, some of the stories you wouldn't wish to hear, but for all of that, it's very rewarding. So I see it as a real privilege to be in this position, to be dealing with a family, a victim or an offender, or both at the worst time of their life. I imagine.

00:36:28:02 - 00:36:53:23
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And the thing isn't many things worse than learning that your loved ones are either responsible for or the victims of sexual abuse or horrendous trauma and you there to try and help them come to terms with it, to find the truth, to find a cause of death, to begin to patch up their life. And and if you can do that professionally, you can provide those answers.

00:36:54:00 - 00:37:19:20
Superintendent Dickon Turner
What a great privilege is to be there and to then potentially achieve justice on the end of that for the most serious crimes someone sent to prison. You know, that's that's a great thing or so yeah I'd recommend people join, you know do do that work. Keep up that work. It's extremely valuable. It's extremely rewarding, but not without challenges, you know, is ago.

00:37:19:20 - 00:37:51:03
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Forensic science seems to trot out a phrase called every contact Leaves a trace by which they mean there's DNA or fingerprints or a hair or something incriminating at a crime scene. And they look for those traces in order to solve the crimes. But I've heard it used this is in terms of murder investigations. But I think it applies to any sensitive or tricky situation where professionalism, engaging with someone who's suffering your contact with that person leaves a trace.

00:37:51:03 - 00:38:12:05
Superintendent Dickon Turner
So every contact leads a trace in as much that because they're in trauma and crisis, they may well not remember what you said to them. They probably won't remember the instructions. They might not remember that you wanted to meet them tomorrow, you know, or get a signature or need a document or whatever. But they probably remember how you made them feel, you know?

00:38:12:06 - 00:38:32:15
Superintendent Dickon Turner
And if you're kind a professional, you listen supportive. They'll remember that, you know, if you're not those things, you're only making the situation even worse. So I think that's, you know, if you're in the trade already or you're thinking of entering the trade, I think that's a useful phrase to remember.

00:38:32:17 - 00:38:51:12
Steve Macabee - Host
Wonderful. Thank you very much. To come back and I appreciate. Thank you. So that can just just to finish off, I would just like to say on behalf of myself, behalf of the business unit and behalf of the Partnership A as a whole, a huge thank you for the amount of work you put into the partnership over the last last couple of years.

00:38:51:14 - 00:38:55:08
Steve Macabee - Host
And I'm genuinely want to wish you the best of luck for the future.

00:38:55:10 - 00:38:55:21
Superintendent Dickon Turner
Rach.

00:38:55:23 - 00:39:04:15
Steve Macabee - Host
Thank you very much. And take care and enjoy retirement, which I'm going to say in quotation marks to say that. Yeah, nothing. No new. I don't think it's going to be quite retirement.

00:39:04:17 - 00:39:09:12
Superintendent Dickon Turner
I'm moving on to another safeguarding real estate, but I intend to enjoy it. Thanks.

00:39:09:15 - 00:39:35:21
Steve Macabee - Host
Thanks. Dickon Turner, as always, if you'd like to find out more details on the topics discussed in today's episode, go to the SSCP website at Somerset Safeguarding Children dot org dot UK or by following any of the links in the description, there are any questions or comments arising from today's episode who would like to be involved in future episodes? We'd love you to get in touch with us at the PPod@Somerset.gov.uk

00:39:35:23 - 00:39:57:02
Steve Macabee - Host
Once again, I'd like to thank Dikon Turner, Superintendent and Somerset Commander of the Somerset Police and Chair of the SSCP Executive Group for taking part in today's podcast. And of course, to you for listening. My name is Steve Maccabee and I'm the training manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership, and I look forward to joining us again next time at the PPod.

00:39:57:04 - 00:40:00:03
Let's work together to help keep children safe.