Introduction

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

The Appropriate Adult Service 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 short lead in time. We are the fastest growing independent provider of Appropriate Adult Services. We are a nationwide company and provide services to YOT's, Independent RSU's, independent fostering agencies & care homes, Serious Crime Groups, Adult Services Teams, Police Stations, Learning Disability Teams, Substance Misuse Teams and Solicitors firms.

By providing an effective appropriate adult service, The Appropriate Adult Service ensures that unnecessary delays caused whilst in custody are 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 The Appropriate Adult Service 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.

The Appropriate Adult Service 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 station contacts social services, who then call us and give us authorisation to attend. This would obviously not necessarily be needed if we were under contract to any particular social services.
	The police contact the social worker in question, who then contacts us and ask us to attend. These two methods of contact ensure that delays are kept to a minimum.