Project title: Developing the Abilities of Law Enforcement Personnel regarding Interaction with Minors in Professional Contexts

Duration: November 2023 – January 2025

Project number: 2023-1-RO01-KA210-VET-000161664

Programme: Small-scale partnerships in vocational education and training

Coordinator: "Ministry of Internal Affairs' Centre for Initial and Continuous Training”

Website: under construction

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555543545236 

Keywords: Democracy and inclusive democratic participation ; European identity, citizenship and values ; Human rights and rule of law

 

 

 

OVERWIEV

The attitude of the M.A.I. employees when dealing with a minor is no different from the attitude of the adults with whom they interact professionally. The inappropriate conduct of the police and gendarmes in their professional relationship with minors, the inadequate management of this relationship, is the result of a syncope in their training, both initial and ongoing, a gap in the relevant legislative provisions, as well as a deficiency in the development of a document to guide their work. The reality is that a minor, as perpetrator, victim or witness, interacts primarily with a police or gendarmerie officer. This interaction is defining for the level of trauma and victimisation that the minor will perceive in relation to the authority. Inappropriate behaviour of the police officer/police officer in relation to the juvenile can lead to increased juvenile delinquency as a negative response to the inappropriate reaction of the authority or to the maximisation of anti-social behaviour. In this context, the project aims to: Train 12 trainers in the delivery of a training programme aimed at developing the ability of police and gendarmes to interact appropriately with minors in the first 6 months after the start of the project; Develop and test a guide for interaction with minors with the participation of 40 police and gendarmes in 12 months after the start of the project; Develop a user-friendly website to support police-minor interaction by the end of the project. The training officers and specialists appointed by the partner will have adequate skills to deliver further trainings, will be involved and will produce the guide "In dialogue with minors!", will manage its testing through 2 training sessions delivered to 40 police officers and gendarmes. The design and capabilities of the digital tool created will also be tested in consultation with the training participants so that it can be useful for M.A.I. staff in similar situations of interaction with minors in any corner of the country. The implementation of this project will bring coherence to the continuous training of police and gendarmes, create tools for them to work with and develop skills to interact with a vulnerable group: minors. We believe that the project supports the priority of inclusion and diversity, the trained police officers work in rural areas or small towns and their interaction with minors is addressed for the first time in a tailor-made way, starting from the vulnerability of this group (minors). The project covers a niche in the training of M.A.I. staff, and its organisation in an unconventional and practical way represents a change in the way training is done. Training them, providing them with a working tool gives security in their work and increases the attractiveness of training. C.F.I.C. capitalises on training experience and learns transnationally.

 

 

 

 

TARGET GROUPS

 

The target groups are:

• training officers from our institution, trainers/counsellors from the partner; it is important to mention that our training institution operates in Orăștie, a municipality of Hunedoara county, a town with about 15. 000 inhabitants;
• the second target group consists of 40 police officers and gendarmes from Romania, working in operational structures, working in rural areas or in localities with less than 30.000 inhabitants, in the mountain gendarmerie;
• police officers from school safety formations or other identified formations, from the partner (about 30 police officers);
• minors from Romania and from the partner.

The Romanian M.A.I. personnel will also be selected according to their age, with those over 40 years old (60%) participating in the training activity. The same criterion will be applied by the partner for the selection of the police forces participating in the training. We believe that in this way we contribute to our proposal responds to the horizontal principle of inclusion and diversity, as the training delivered for both training officers and police officers is aimed at a group that has fewer opportunities and faces barriers to participation in European projects. Through the training delivered, participating police officers will be able to perceive the minor with the right glasses and even distinguish between simulated behaviour or behaviour specific to a minor, e.g. autistic. This type of information and description of appropriate reactions that a police officer might have is not presented at any level of training in the M.A.I. or the Romanian Police, most of the time the hierarchical support for police officers in the target group in interacting with minors is formulated "Be careful how you behave". Therefore, the creation of a support tool, the guide as well as the website will support the M.A.I. staff in the operational areas, in the most isolated structures of the Romanian Police and Gendarmerie.

 

PROJECT RESULTS

 

The C.F.I.C. will manage the project. It will organise 1 training of trainers activity, with the participation of 8 trainers and 2 activities to test the Interaction Guide developed during the project, with the participation of 40 police officers and gendarmes. It will ensure the selection of the target group of M.A.I. staff participating in the testing of the Guide. It will coordinate the activity of developing the Guide to Interaction with Minors and will ensure its dissemination in all the M.A.I. units in the country. It will monitor the project in Romania and disseminate its results. It will carry out regular reporting for the project. Financially manage the project.

 

WSBINOZ will designate 4 trainers/teachers who will participate in the training of trainers activity at our headquarters in Romania (Orastie, Hunedoara county). It will also provide 1 expert in criminology/probation and 1 expert in communication with children. Will organise a focus group with police officers in Poland to identify relevant issues for the development of the Guidelines for Interaction with Minors. Provide support in editing and developing the guide. Organise an online programme (webinar) with the Polish Police aimed at promoting guidelines and best practices for interaction with minors in professional situations; provide conditions for the organisation of a transnational management meeting (mid-term evaluation meeting) in Poland in June 2024; participate in the project opening/closing conference. Throughout the duration of the project will promote the project on its own website and disseminate project results to law enforcement institutions in Poland.

 

PROJECT PARTNERS

• Ministry of Internal Affairs' Centre for Initial and Continuous Training (Romania)
• Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu i Nauk o Zdrowiu w Łodzi (Poland)

 

How to contact us?

Contact to the institutional coordinator: j.komorek@wsbinoz.pl