During the 22nd-24th May, both the Wales Violence Prevention Unit and Adverse Childhood Experiences Hub Wales attended The European Conference on Law Enforcement and Public Health (LEPH) in Sweden. The theme for this year was “Together towards resilient communities.”
The VPU and ACE Hub Wales co-led two major sessions, these were:
- Wales, a trauma-informed nation: Laying the foundations
This session looked at the fundamentals of the work the VPU and ACE Hub Wales are doing to develop a trauma-informed nation. Over the last five years we have developed ways of working in Wales that bridge the intersection of public health and law enforcement, and as such lay the foundations for the implementation of approaches and interventions that make a real difference to our diverse Welsh communities.
- Wales: Practical interventions that work
This session introduced some of the more practical activities and interventions that led to outcomes that have supported Welsh communities; and a chance to discuss ‘what works’ to bring about effective collaboration between law enforcement, public health, and Welsh society.
The final session was Marketplace of Ideas, Trauma-informed approaches to policing, childhood adversity and early intervention: What does trauma-informed awareness mean for practice?
Which was a chance for ACE Hub Wales and the Wales Violence Prevention Unit to showcase an array of resources which can be used to inform the development of accessible training products on adversity and trauma-informed practice, and violence prevention.
LEPH has been a great opportunity to showcase examples of innovative coproduced and evidence led activity at the strategic and practice level, which will support Wales on its mission to become a trauma-informed nation by 2025. The sessions aimed to clarify how Wales is working together toward resilient communities, enabled by a shared strategic direction and commitment to a public health approach to violence prevention across health and policing, and was a chance to explore how this collaboration works in practice to deliver real and lasting change for Wales.
Dr Joanne Hopkins, Programme Director for ACEs, Criminal Justice and Violence Prevention, Public Health Wales
About LEPH 2023
LEPH2023 Europe is the first regional European conference exploring the complex and diverse intersections of law enforcement and public health, involving practitioners, policy makers and researchers from these and other related sectors. It carries on the international LEPH conference series, with an opportunity to focus on key regional issues.
The key theme for LEPH2023 Europe is ‘Together towards resilient communities’, building on previous LEPH conferences which have described and analysed the issues, examined a huge range of actual and possible responses globally, and stressed the importance of collaborative leadership in policy and practice.
Further resources
To find out more about the Conference, click here.
To visit ACE Hub Wales’ webpage with session summaries and supporting documents, click here.
