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Providing support to vulnerable people, victims and witnesses

Unit 4 of the Level 5 Diploma in Professional Policing Practice, with the law behind it and the pages on this site to read alongside.

What the unit covers

Providing support to vulnerable people, victims and witnesses is unit 4 of the SFJ Awards Level 5 Diploma in Professional Policing Practice, at 120 guided learning hours and 22 credits. The handbook says the unit "explores the concept of vulnerability, the available options to protect and assist those in need, and the complexities involved in providing care during investigations".

It has four learning outcomes. The first is to understand vulnerability: the factors that contribute to it, including the risk of grooming, exploitation and radicalisation, the importance of assessing a person's ability to cope with a situation, and the role of communication. The second is to understand the options for protecting and supporting victims and witnesses: the police role in directing people to specialist support, the protective measures available, good practice in victim care, and the victim's own choices, including what to do when a victim does not want a formal criminal justice outcome. The third is to understand victim and witness care in a complex investigation, including the position of a witness who becomes a suspect. The fourth is practical: communicating effectively, providing support, addressing what stops people accepting help, assessing resilience and making referrals, and dealing with everyone in line with ethics, equality, diversity and human rights.

The apprenticeship standard (ST0304) carries the same ground as duty 5, providing support to vulnerable people, victims and witnesses, and as skill 13, assessing risk and threat to select techniques that protect those in need of public protection.

The law and procedure behind it

This summary follows the site's own pages linked under Read on this site, which carry the section and Code citations; the sources listed above are the training documents, not the Acts. Read the Act or Code before relying on any point here.

Victims' entitlements are set out in the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, which the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 placed on a statutory footing. It gives twelve overarching rights, including the right to be told what is happening at every stage and the right to be told why a decision not to prosecute was made. Vulnerable and intimidated witnesses may give evidence with special measures under the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999: screens, live link, video-recorded evidence in chief, intermediaries and communication aids. Interviews with vulnerable witnesses and children follow Achieving Best Evidence guidance and are video-recorded so they can stand as evidence in chief. A victim personal statement, separate from the evidential statement, describes the effect of the offence.

In custody, PACE Code C requires an appropriate adult for anyone under 18 or who appears mentally disordered or otherwise mentally vulnerable, and a juvenile cannot be interviewed without one. Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places a duty on police to discharge their functions with regard to safeguarding children, and the Children Act 1989 provides emergency protection orders and police powers to remove a child to safety. Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 provides the place of safety route for a person in crisis.

Domestic abuse has its own apparatus. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 gives a statutory definition covering physical, sexual, controlling or coercive, economic and psychological abuse between people personally connected, and treats children who see or hear it as victims. Officers attending use the DASH risk assessment. A Domestic Violence Protection Notice issued by a superintendent bars a perpetrator from contact or the home for up to 48 hours, after which the police must apply for a Domestic Violence Protection Order lasting up to 28 days; the replacement notices and orders under the 2021 Act were still being piloted in 2026. Clare's Law allows anyone to ask whether a partner has a history of abuse. Controlling or coercive behaviour is an offence under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015, and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 covers trafficking and exploitation, including the criminal exploitation of children seen in county lines.

Read on this site

Powers

Offences

PACE

Rights

Glossary

Knowledge

Compare

Legislation

Aide-memoires

Where it sits in training

The College of Policing's 2026 joining guide sets the common milestones: initial off-the-job learning within five to six months, tutored patrol within ten months, and full operational competence at around two years. Victim and witness contact starts on the first tutored patrol, so the practical outcomes here are evidenced from the earliest shifts.

Within the diploma, the performance criteria are assessed only once Independent Patrol Status has been confirmed, each on at least two occasions in the Operational Competence Portfolio. The handbook maps this unit's practical criteria to the Independent Patrol Status criteria, and its knowledge on complex investigations links forward to the investigation and interviewing units, where victim care during a complex case is evidenced again.

Sources

Last updated 19 October 2026. Reviewed 19 October 2026