Friday 30 May 2025
Training sessions for professionals cover the impacts of stalking and how to spot it, as well as how to support young people to identify unhealthy relationships.
120 mental health and youth justice professionals took part in day-long stalking training events across Durham and Darlington. The events were over three days from 14 – 16 May 2025.
Attendees were from our Trust’s Forensic Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) as well as Youth Justice Services.
The training events form part of a pilot Serious Youth Violence Pathway, within Durham and Darlington Youth Justice Services, funded by Durham Police & Crime Commissioners Office.
The distressing and emotive content covered by the training, highlighted why reports of stalking must be taken seriously. On Wednesday 14 May the morning session was hosted by Clive Ruggles, father of Alice Ruggles who was murdered by her stalker in Gateshead in 2016.
Following Alice’s murder, Clive and his wife, Sue Ruggles, set up a charity in Alice’s name – The Alice Ruggles Trust. The Trust hopes to help young people to understand stalking, the potential risks, and what they can do about it. One of the ways they are doing this is by upskilling professionals who work with children and young people, through events like these.
Christopher Rosenbrier, who organised the events alongside the Alice Ruggles Trust, is a Principle Applied Psychologist within the Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. The service works across a range of agencies, to provide consultation for people who work with young people who display high risk behaviours towards others. Chris also works as a Senior Lecturer at Teesside University and as the lead psychologist for the Serious Youth Violence Pathway.
Christopher says:
“Our main hopes for the event were to increase professionals’ knowledge and awareness of stalking among young people.
“Research tells us that this population are more likely to be victims of stalking and 1 in 5 young people will experience this behaviour.
“Recent statistics and reviews also highlight that young people tend to report the most serious forms of stalking to police, suggesting that they are either experiencing more severe victimisation, or waiting for the behaviour to escalate to a serious extent before raising concerns.
“These findings may also indicate that stalking behaviours are somewhat normalised within younger populations, and as such, the risks associated with this go unrecognised.
Despite being normalised, stalking can have a hugely detrimental impact on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Stalking can impact mental health, physical health and finances as well as potentially causing negative impacts on work, school and friendships.
The training events look to address this important issue by ensuring professionals and services working directly with young people know how to spot the signs or indicators of stalking at the earliest opportunity, then know how to respond effectively to prevent possible harm.
Stalking can be recognised by a pattern of fixated, obsessive, unwanted and repetitive behaviours from perpetrators. The training highlighted that ex-romantic partners were most at risk of stalking, with one of the goals being to help young people to develop respectful relationships.
Chris says: “Ultimately, we hope the training events have started a conversation about stalking among professionals who are at the forefront of working directly with young people in this key developmental period, and in the long-term, this may decrease the risk of harm or possibly save a life.”
Following the success of the training events, Chris hopes to continue the collaboration between the Alice Ruggles Trust and our Trust. This includes exploring interventions for young people engaging in stalking behaviour. Current plans include the creation of a Virtual Reality intervention for young people, which our Trust is hoping to start developing for its Forensic Child and Adolescent Services at some point this year.
To learn more about stalking, The Alice Ruggles Trust has a range of resources. This includes:
