CD-CP Replication Sites : Nashville, TN

Main Contact

Donna Humbert
Family and Children’s Services
201 23rd Street North
Nashville, TN 37203
donnahumbert@yahoo.com

Participating Agencies

Website

Program Goal

The Nashville Child Development-Community Policing (CD-CP) program aligns the city’s mental health, law enforcement, school, and overall community resources to identify and treat children and their families who have had exposure to a violent or traumatic event.

Program Overview

Nashville CD-CP’s infrastructure within the city strengthens community collaborations on referrals and responses to victims of violence. Available 24 hours, everyday, CD-CP clinicians accept both acute and non-acute referrals from officers, child advocates, victim advocates, school staff, and community residents in a variety of ways, including the acute pager and referral phone line, office phone, fax, mail, or walk-in. With offices nested in three inner city communities, three public housing developments and one elementary school, Nashville CD-CP is an easily accessible resource, and plays an important role connecting community residents to community services.

To strengthen CDCP network relationships, stay connected to community issues, and gain a sense of an officer’s complex role within a community, clinicians participate in regular police ride-alongs. Police officers participate in therapeutic case work, often by offering safety planning services. At weekly case conference meetings, cases are triaged and either retained for therapeutic services and planning, or referred to appropriate community agencies that may better serve the child and his/her family’s immediate and long-term needs. Approximately 30% of referrals to CD-CP result in short term therapeutic services to address a client’s behavioral responses and needs related to having witnessed or been a victim of a violent of traumatic event. Embedded within a not-for-profit private agency, all therapeutic and case management services and are provided free of charge to clients, and may result in later referrals to manage more pervasive needs not associated with trauma exposure.

Overall, the Nashville CD-CP operates collaboratively by welcoming all relevant input about a case from any member of the affected community, synthesizing that information into real and appropriate action, and treating families holistically. The Nashville CDCP operationalizes the idea that change in families is most effective when everyone is working towards the same goals.

Staff

The clinical team is comprised of three full-time therapists, a case manager, and a program coordinator. The team also has six clinicians who are employed by the Metropolitan Police Department in their victim assistance counseling programs. One of the clinicians is on-site at the MNDP Domestic Violence Division to work with children and their caregivers when a Domestic Violence report has been made.

The MNPD clinicians attend the monthly CD-CP meetings, make referrals for the CD-CP team, help problem-solve concerns with police department limitations, and work on special projects to further the goals of the CD-CP team. They also occasionally assist with police and community trainings. MNPD clinicians average about five hours a month on CD-CP related activities.