Critical incidents and community impact assessments
Investigation — Authorised Professional Practice
Summary
This section addresses the importance of critical incidents and community impact assessments within police response to child abuse investigations. Officers are directed to adhere to local force policies regarding critical incidents, ensuring that definitions and procedures are followed. Additionally, officers should be cognizant that child abuse investigations can affect community perceptions, thus informing the need for community impact assessments. Local policy should guide these assessments, and force diversity advisers must be notified about them to address potential community impact effectively.
Key principles
- 1Follow local force policies for critical incidents in child abuse cases.
- 2Critical incidents may influence community perception of policing.
- 3Community impact assessments should be conducted per local policy.
- 4Diversity advisers should be informed about community impact assessments.
Defined terms
- critical incident
- A situation that requires special response and management protocols due to its significance or potential impact.
- community impact assessments
- Evaluations that assess the potential effects of police actions on a particular community.
Full guidance
Responding to public protection and major investigation issues, for example, child abuse, knife crime and sexual offences
This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.
Force policies relating to critical incidents and community impact assessments can be relevant in some child abuse investigations. They can also be used to promote confidence in the police.
Local force policies should be followed where cases of child abuse meet the definition for a critical incident .
Officers investigating child abuse and responding to concerns for children should be aware that the issue may be perceived as relating to a particular community and/or that it may impact adversely on that community. Officers should follow local policy regarding community impact assessments. The force diversity adviser(s) should be informed of the community impact assessments and the reason why they are being prepared.
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Read the full APP guidanceSource: College of Policing — Authorised Professional Practice · Crown copyright, licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0. Summary fetched 2026-06-27.