Our impact legacy in policing practice

Glasgow University has followed up the ESRC project with new investment in 2014 enabling us to secure the impact legacy for the research project via new training contributions to the UK College of Policing education modules that will be rolled out in National Policing Curriculum for the following:

Missing Person Standard Search e-learning and ‘Missing Person e-briefing’ and ‘Missing Daughter’ e-learning (Public Protection Level 1) links to the Glasgow University Research Report together with a further link to the Glasgow University Research Audio Resources ‘Stories of Missing People’. Between 2012-2015 the total numbers of officers taking these modules numbered 33, 711, so by directing police learners toward the GU resources, we and the Uk Police College are making a difference across significant numbers of officers.

The GU based team and Penny Woolnough designed a new input to the Police National Search Centre POLSA Missing Person course and this is delivered on all POLSA courses to around 90 specialist officers per year, via 3-4 courses and who are asked to evaluate the impact on their policing practice. This evaluation tells us how the research matters to the people who use it.

UK police officers on CPD training inputs in 2014:

Missing Person coordinator “I will be liaising with my divisional command team regarding families and closer partnership engagement”

SGT (PoISA) “Following initial advice and this input will also help mid-term and with developing misper return strategy”

Sergeant (PoISA operational support) “I will be more receptive to input from families. I am now keen to meet with families”

Chief Inspector/ search coordinator Ops support “I will more likely interact with the family rather than wait for misper liaison officers to feedback information”

Sergeant (PoISA) “Will enable me to develop a more targeted search strategy and enable evidencing of my decision process”

Sergeant (PoISA) “I already have a copy of “geographies of mispers” and adapted my strategies to reflect new data”

Sergeant (PoISA) “I am better able to assess the missing incident from the viewpoint of the missing person”