Q We have heard
from you and from Rob Owen about what seems to be a very
strong link between offensive weapons and young people
who have been excluded from school. You have talked about
the work that can be done and alluded to alternative
provision in Manchester. Can you give some specifics
about what can be done at the point when young people
have been excluded from school and, as we hear, are being
targeted by gangs because they are available and perhaps
vulnerable and in trouble? Are there any successful
pilots currently operational in this field?
Anne Longfield OBE, Children’s
Commissioner: ...In different
areas there is a hotch-potch in responses. In some areas
the police will look to scrabble a bit of money
together—often only a few hundred pounds—to put on
sessions and workshops in schools, but sometimes they
find it difficult to get that money. They are often
working with the Police and Crime Commissioners, but
again there are limited funds. They are often not well
set up to start working with feeder schools for hotspot
secondaries. All that is new territory for a lot of
police forces. That is why a longer-term collaborative
approach is the way forward. There is not a magic bullet
for this, and we cannot police or legislate our way out
of it. Although that is clearly important, this has to be
a long-term process that looks at an alternative approach
for those children and recognises where help is
needed....
To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE
