Following highly successful conferences in North America, Africa, Europe and Australia, the 2026 global event in Leeds presents a unique opportunity to spotlight global research and world-leading practice across law enforcement and public health. The 2026 overarching theme will be vulnerability, policing and public health.
The conference will be open to law enforcement and public health agencies, national and local governments, relevant research bodies, academic institutes, policy makers as well as the commercial sector and other partner organisations. Bringing these diverse communities and perspectives together, the conference presents an ideal space for sharing and learning about new approaches, instigating and developing real change in practice, based on the best available evidence internationally.
Colleagues from ACE Hub Wales, Trauma-Informed Wales, the Violence Prevention Team, Bangor University and Ethnic Minorities & Youth Support Team (EYST) will collaboratively host three panel sessions, and two marketplaces of ideas sessions will be offered.
Find out more about the Conference here.
You can read more about the content of each panel session below.
How do we create a trauma-informed nation?
This panel brings together perspectives on systems change, public narrative, partnership working, implementation and language to explore Wales' journey towards becoming a trauma-informed society. Through discussions of social movements, storytelling, relational leadership and shared meaning-making, speakers will examine how trauma-informed principles can be embedded across public services, communities and everyday life, highlighting the collective action needed to achieve lasting societal change.
This panel draws on the experience of practitioners and researchers at Public Health Wales and Bangor University to share the methods and approaches underpinning violence prevention in Wales, offering transferable learning for those working to implement a public health approach in their own contexts. Presentations introduce the RISE framework (Relating Perspectives, Identifying Opportunity, Strengthening Capability and Embedding Prevention) and its operationalization in practice, including the Wales Without Violence Community of Practice; examine the collaborative research approaches used to develop knowledge on violence across the life course; and showcase a self-evaluation toolkit developed with the Welsh Government VAWDASV Blueprint to support universities in planning, implementing and monitoring violence prevention activity. Together, they offer a grounded and practical account of what a public health approach looks like when translated into research, partnership and practice.
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