The CARE/Vimes Update

Hello,

I emailed you about two months ago to say that CARE and the software platform Vimes launched (if you missed it, see here to read). Since then a lot has happened, some good, some not good. 

Estella, Kevin, and I were invited to speak at the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police Conference. Around a ¼ of the conference attended the talk and 112 chiefs and other executives requested information about how to collaborate on the project. 

Off the back of the conference, we hope to be launching in a number of other cities before the end of the year, and we’ll keep you updated.

In less happy news, the new process of CARE has unearthed some heart-wrenching cases. 

The primary goal of CARE was to proactively save children’s lives, reduce the amount of trauma they might suffer, and enable a swifter and more humane response to trauma already suffered.

I thought of CARE during one of the first domestic violence (DV) incidents I attended. As with most DV calls in London, a call came across my police radio frequency informing me of a crime that occurred in a flat (apartment).

As I walked through the threshold of the door, a beautiful young black girl aged four or five jumped up at me to play with my uniform. I smiled down at her as she happily told me, “He hit her, he hit her.”

The happy girl’s mother had been physically beaten by her brother and the flat had been torn to shreds as he hunted for money.

I thought of my training at Hendon. We had learnt about Victoria Climbié, the eight-year-old with a beautiful smile whose abuse had been overlooked and ignored time and again. 

Victoria had over 120 injuries and scars at the time of her death, including burns from cigarettes and hot water poured over her head. But Victoria seemed like such a happy girl, and her smile in the face of such cruelty was given as a reason for warning signs being missed by emergency services during the inquest into her death. 

It was roughly 20 years between Victoria’s death and me looking down at this little girl. Time had moved on, but it was the same story. We all but ignored the little girl and focussed on the DV.

I found out that the abuser, the girl’s uncle, had a history of sexually assaulting five-year-olds. He had spent time in and out of prisons and mental health institutions. He was addicted to skunk (super-strength weed). I circulated him as wanted and within 24 hours an intelligence report came out saying that he had shot someone in the back with a shotgun. 

But for the little girl, the case was closed. We were looking for her uncle. Her part of the story was over. 

But that is not where the little girl’s story ended. No doubt she went to school the next day and came home to a traumatized mother who, unfortunately, took out a lot of rage on her daughter. Indeed, she repeatedly said to her little girl that this wouldn’t have happened if she wasn’t so annoying. 

As a police officer, teacher, nurse, social worker, volunteer, do-gooder, try-hard, whoever, there are times that you try your best, but your best is not good enough. 

So, I started thinking of ways that could have helped that little girl and I thought up CARE. Not straight away. There were various bad ideas in between. But I decided that procedures were the most important thing about my job, and if I could improve them, I could make a big, positive impact in the lives of the overlooked and the officers who were trying to do the looking. 

My life is unimaginably more peaceful running the CARE intervention and the Vimes software which allows for rapid information sharing about children at risk than it was as a frontline officer, but there are still tough days. 

This week, I was reminded that sometimes you can’t proactively prevent danger. Sometimes the best you can do is react to tragedy with the knowledge that your response will be inadequate. 

In our pilot site, a thirteen-year-old girl was found by officers. Her two-month old child had been accidentally suffocated in her sleep. 

I am far removed from this heartbreak. I did not answer the call, nor did I lose a child. My knowledge of this infant born to an abused child, who was only twelve-year when she was first pregnant, is in some ways academic. But I feel grief. Grief that this could happen. Grief at it all.  

I feel some comfort that the thirteen-year-old child got services far faster than she would without our tools, and that all the stakeholders knew about her within seconds, but not much. If she ever decides to go back to school the teachers will know a bit more about her story, but the story is still a bleak one. 

There is no magic cure to the suffering caused by generational deprivation and broken communities. However, I write this with a desperate hope that people will shine their light on this mother who lost her baby so that she can enjoy the last shreds of her childhood. 

Despite the tragic contents newsletter, I am optimistic. We have assessed a significant volume of children over the past two and a bit months. We estimate that services are being provided to victims of maltreatment about 80 times faster than the national average, and we don’t know how many tragedies we may have prevented. But I am reminded that we are a very small part of the solution. 

I don’t know what happened to the little girl I found in the flat that day. I remember her face as it was, but I know that she’s probably getting ready to go to high school this September. I’d like to think that if I came across her now, I could do a hell of a lot more to help her. 

As ever, if you think there is anyone we should meet or collaborate with, please get in touch. 

If you want CARE and Vimes in your city, we’d love to come.

Kind regards,

Saul, Estella, and Kevin