Groundbreaking UWE Bristol project based on children’s lived experiences of racism in the UK set to transform police training

03 February 2025

For the first project of its kind in the UK, University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) researchers have worked with over 1,000 primary-aged children to explore the everyday experiences of racism they navigate, which revealed a broken relationship between young children and the police.

The children, who are from global majority communities, said that they feel like the police make them feel “less safe” and “scared to leave home”, and that they “want to trust the police”.

The learnings from this unique project, in collaboration with Avon and Somerset Police, will be used as part of UWE Bristol’s Professional Policing course from September 2025 to confront issues of racism within the police force when training the next generation of police constables. The materials developed from the research will be used as part of a suite of 'lived experience' teaching and learning, providing context and perspective of children from underrepresented groups.

The outcomes of the research are already being trialled successfully within Avon and Somerset Police as part of its training.

UWE Bristol and Avon and Somerset Police also worked with the Bristol-based CC Animation Studio to create a poignant animation which addresses issues of institutional racism in the police and celebrates the culmination of this project.

Lead researcher, Dr Verity Jones, associate professor in education at UWE Bristol, said: “Partnering with Avon and Somerset Police on this project has allowed us to develop much-needed tools based on real insight into children’s experience of everyday racism in the UK. This will be the start of real change to address racism in the emergency services.”

 

Two women and a child sit in a school setting with a laptop
L-R Dr Verity Jones, pupil Luna and Dr Anne Eason

PC Ryan Day, inclusion and diversity officer at Avon and Somerset Police, said: “Chief Constable Sarah Crew acknowledged institutional racism in our service in 2023 and since then we have been taking practical steps to support our ambition of becoming an anti-racist organisation. 

“It’s sad so many children from global majority backgrounds don’t trust the police to keep them safe, but I know this stems from intergenerational trauma stretching back decades, where certain communities felt over policed and under protected. This project takes a refreshing approach by capturing children’s voices and really listening to what they’re telling us, as so often children’s views are overlooked by those in authority. 

“Looking at how we train our new officers is fundamental in changing the culture in Avon and Somerset Police, so they hear first-hand the issues we’re trying to address and build cultural understanding from the start of their careers about the approach needed when policing different communities. 

“We have already started to include the voices of young people into our Race Matters training, which supports our staff to embed anti-racist practice into everyday policing. It would be brilliant if they could also be used by other criminal justice services to build a collective bond of trust between statutory agencies and local communities.”

The research forms part of UWE Bristol’s RESPECT project, which began working with primary-aged children in 2021 to amplify young people’s lived experience of racism in the UK. The RESPECT team and collaborators have designed the resources so that other police forces and emergency services around the country can easily incorporate the new resources into their training.

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