‍During this year’s Spiking Intensification week we travelled to Sussex Police to deliver a training session focussed on understanding how to have a trauma informed response to spiking when dealing with first disclosures. 

In September this year, we delivered our trauma-informed response to spiking workshop to licensing managers working at Sussex Police, with a focus on how to handle first disclosures. 47% of people who have submitted their spiking experience to Spike Report rated the response of the police to their report as poor to very poor. This percentage is emphasised further by those who explained that during first disclosures, some police officers had not believed them, had used victim blaming language and in some cases had little knowledge of what spiking is. We delivered this workshop to Sussex Police so that their licensing officers know how to be victim-led, and how to empower victims to continue further with the reporting process, in the hope that more perpetrators are identified and prosecuted.

The topics covered in this workshop included:

• The nature and current methods of spiking
• The behaviours of spiking perpetrators
• Understanding victims of spiking and how they may feel and experience trauma 
• How police staff are currently responding to disclosures of spiking and the effects of this 
• How to be victim-led when dealing with first disclosures of spiking
• Helpful phrases to empower and validate victims
• Applying the learnt knowledge and skills to real life spiking disclosures