Tuesday 31st May 2011 - First Choice Trainers Train Islington Police

Elfrida Society organised three training sessions with a group of people who have different abilities to help improve relationships with the police.

The scenes showed good and bad examples of behaviour when different people professional and personal come into contact with the members of the group.

Support workers, carers and friends were also shown taking advantage or being abusive towards people with learning difficulties, highlighting the issue of ‘mate crime’.

The Elfrida Society also gave officers 10 tips on how to deal with people with learning difficulties.

PC Simon Tiffin, from Caledonian SNT, said: “This has been really worthwhile training and has given us an opportunity to see what the needs of people with learning difficulties really are. It has been even more thought provoking to find out what their view of the police is, and how we can now inform that through this training. I thought the role plays made it really interesting and I was impressed with them for getting up and doing it without being nervous!”

Inspector John Frost said: “This has been a really positive piece of partnership working which saw police officers being trained by Islington residents and has helped to foster relationships with some vulnerable members of our community. This will now help our officers to encourage hard to reach groups to report incidents of ‘hate’ or ‘mate’ crime. I look forward to further such initiatives in the forthcoming year.”

Frank Hutson, from the Elfrida Society said: “It is one of our ambitions to work with different service providers in the community, such as the police, dentists, doctors, and the council so that public sector professionals are all giving similar treatment to members of the community with learning difficulties.”

Back to the news