Brake is a national charity whose objective is to reach as many road victims who have been bereaved or catastrophically injured as possible, providing emotional and practical support through their National Road Victim Service.
The National Road Victim Service operates from day one of a crash. It is a specialist service only supporting road victims across a team of professional, paid caseworkers. The National Road Victim Service is one of only a few specialist services of this nature, and the only one operating nationally in trauma informed and clinically led ways. The service is also one of the few which provides a triage function – stabilising individuals upon entry, addressing urgent and high-risk vulnerabilities such as mental health and suicide.
The National Road Victim Service can save police family liaison officers, not trained in providing this type of support and expected to operate in line with investigative needs only, on average 22 hours per case.
Funding will be used to contribute to the cost of supporting road victims in Cleveland in the next 12 months, anticipating an expected caseload of 10 families based on previous data.
Funding will also cover the costs of literature to be distributed to road victims by police family liaison officers.