Mise en place d’un dispositif innovant dans la prise en charge des enfants exposés aux violences intrafamiliales : un partenariat entre une équipe mobile de pédopsychiatrie et la Gendarmerie Nationale

Abstract

The family is the place where children are most likely to be exposed to violence. The child may be abused and then becomes the victim of an intentional violence directed towards him/her. The child may also be “exposed” indirectly to domestic violence as a witness, but may suffer from this situation can lead to deleterious consequences for him/her. In under age children, exposure to domestic violence can indeed lead to psychological problems expressed through internalized or emotional symptoms and/or externalized symptoms. These problems may disrupt emotional and psychological development in children, especially when facing early and repeated exposure to domestic violence. These children/adolescents have most of the time little access to care directly from a request made by their legal representative. Primary and secondary schools, and social services can identify suffering children and adolescents and guide them, but they often intervene late when symptoms are already settled, following months or years of exposure to domestic violence. Then, Police/Gendarmerie services can have a preventive role when they intervene “on the ground” of domestic violence or meet the abused legal representative at the time of the complaint. Thus, a partnership was established 6 years ago between child psychiatry and the Police/Gendarmerie services leading to an innovative creation of a mobile team of domestic crisis (équipe mobile de crise intrafamiliale [CrIFEM]). This mobile team allows the children/youth and their families to psychically mobilize themselves, to defuse some conflicts negatively affecting the family dynamics and to guide, after evaluation, children/adolescents that would require psychological care.