The Appropriate Adult Service

Appropriate Adults for police interviews, Court, Victim / Witness Support, Youth Triage
Reparation / Restorative Justice, Bail Support, Supervised Contact

http://www. theappropriateadultservice.org. uk /

An appropriate adult should be someone who is completely independent of the police and, where possible the interviewee. They should have a sound understanding of, and experience or training in, dealing with the needs of juveniles or mentally disordered people.

TAAS provides a professional body of such people, who are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

We are a nationwide company, and are able to provide a service in any area with a relatively short lead in time. We are the fastest growing independent provider of Appropriate Adult Services, currently working all over London across England, Wales and Jersey.

We provide services to Independent RSU’s, independent fostering agencies& care homes, Serious Crime Groups, Youth Offending Teams, Adult Services Teams, Police Stations, Learning Disability Teams, Substance Misuse Teams and Solicitors firms.

We believe by providing this service that unnecessary delays caused whilst in custody can be considerably reduced. These delays often lead the interviewee to become unnecessarily stressed, and could in some instances influence the accused into making a premature confession.

By making specialist, trained appropriate adults readily available TAAS can ensure that all requirements of PACE are fulfilled. Presently, without this professional service, the potential for abuse, exploitation and unreliable testimony exists and inevitably, vulnerable people are suffering.

TAAS is able to provide a fully completed referral form to the social services within twenty four hours of our attendance. We are happy to complete a referral form designated by the local authority, develop a new one with the authority of use one of our own referral forms. A small report is made on these forms following every job, to ensure that all records are kept entirely up to date.

Our service can operate in one of two ways: -

* The police contacts us directly, and we then attend according to any pre agreed referral criteria.

* The police contact the social worker in question, who then contacts us and ask us to attend.