After 31 years as a police officer, much of this in
chief officer roles, I learned that strong
partnerships, robust data and clear strategies are
vital parts of any approach to reduce crime. I saw that
children involved in violence had often been victims
themselves and I wanted to help break that cycle.
In my current role as a YJB Board member, and Champion
for reducing serious youth violence (SYV), I have seen
plenty of innovative and promising practice from across
the sector. We have brought this learning together and
are sharing it with youth offending teams (YOTs) to
help address this complex issue.
We are also offering our support and engaging with
central government activity towards a long-term
solution to serious youth violence. Our immediate goal
is to focus our efforts on delivering practical support
for the youth justice community.
SYV Network
We have brought together a network of YOTs who are
experiencing the highest levels of serious youth
violence. Meeting regularly, the network can share
ideas, good practice, success and challenges as well as
benefit from expert speakers and additional YJB
support.
SYV Stocktake
With the help of the SYV Network and other partners, we
have developed a self-assessment tool known as
the SYV
Stocktake. This can help YOTs identify their
strengths and challenges in the work they are
undertaking locally to reduce levels of serious youth
violence. It also includes a bespoke SYV data toolkit
which provides local-level data and trends regarding
the most serious of offences including robbery,
violence against the person and drugs. It is designed
to help YOTs and their partners to understand their
local data and support the work that they are
undertaking to reduce serious youth violence.
Pathfinders
We have also funded specific projects to explore
effective practice and solutions to intractable issues
across the youth justice system, including serious
youth violence. To date, eleven of these pathfinders’ have
the aim of reducing serious youth violence. Funded
projects include:
- out of hours mentoring
- the further engagement of parents and carers
- arts interventions for children
- staff support
- intensifying partnership working
- a whole-team trauma-based approach to youth justice
We work closely with these projects to learn what is
effective and will publish the learning via
the Youth Justice Resource
Hub.
Future work
Our most recent published data tells us that in the
year ending March 2019, there were just over 4,260
offences that we would define as ‘serious youth
violence’.
While this is a decrease of 3% compared with the
previous year (the year ending March 2018), it is 12%
higher than the year ending March 2017. We are still
strongly committed to finding ways to impact on this
complex issue and support YOTs and partners in the
vital work they do.
Our business plan for 2020/21 will be published this
spring and will outline the additional work we intend
to undertake. This will include an evidence assessment
and our learning from the SYV network, stocktake and
SYV pathfinders.
