Agenda item

Safeguarding and Supporting Children and Families

·  Violent Crime Involving Young People

·  General Update

Helen Blackman, Director of Children’s Integrated Service, Shelley Nicholls, Head of Service and Sophie Russell, Head of Children’s Strategy and Improvement delivered a presentation and report on the work of the Serious Youth Violence and Exploitation Programme to safeguard and prevent children and young people becoming victims and offenders.

The following points were highlighted:

(a)  Partnerships involving councils, the police and other stakeholders are key to tackling knife crime;

(b)  Between March 2015 and March 2019, there has been a significant increase in the number of knife crime incidents reported to Nottinghamshire Police but that number has slightly decreased between December 2018 and March 2019;

(c)  Although half of victims and offenders involved in knife crimes in Nottingham City (not including those associated with domestic violence) were aged 25 and over, 23% of offenders were aged under 17 with 18% of under 17s being victims of knife crime. 33% of victims and 26% of offenders were aged 18 – 25. 45% of knife crimes reported were personal robberies with the majority of offences taking place in the City Centre, Hyson Green and Arboretum;

(d)  There are a number of strategic links with the police, schools, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services, safeguarding, families, education and training providers, voluntary and community groups, the Courts and the City Economy which feed into the Serious Youth Violence and Exploitation Programme;

(e)  Criminal exploitation interlinks with a number of multiple vulnerabilities and offences including the child being exposed to and/or victim of physical and emotional violence, neglect, sexual abuse and exploitation, modern day slavery and human trafficking, domestic abuse and missing episodes;

(f)  ‘County Lines’ is a term used by government departments, law enforcement, local authorities and partner agencies to describe the use of mobile phone ‘lines’ by gangs looking to extend their drug dealing activities into locations outside of their metropolitan home areas;

(g)  There is an acute awareness that when dealing with ‘at risk’ individuals and offenders who are threatening children and young adults, it is important that some of these people are also children and young adults, so they need safeguarding and support to;

(h)  Case studies from Chicago and Glasgow have helped inform the Serious Youth Violence and Exploitation Programme’s work;

(i)  The proposed approach breaks down into two areas:

a.  Phase One – Development of a responsive, deployable and flexible resource through a multi-agency hub;

b.  Phase Two – a systemic ‘public health’ approach to tackling the causative factors;

(j)  The Programme links together with Police Crime Commissioner’s Knife Crime Action Plan and aims to coordinate activities;

(k)  Children’s Partnership Board will receive updates from the Serious Youth Violence and Exploitation Programme in line with its governance structure;

(l)  Over £490,000 in Troubled Families ‘Supporting Families affected by Youth Crime’ funding has been secured to work with schools and the voluntary sector;

(m)A Play & Youth review and restructure is underway, which was presented to Executive Panel on 18 March 2019;

(n)  The Multi-agency Child Criminal Exploitation Panel was established in October 2018 and is currently tracking the ‘at risk’ cohort;

(o)  The YouCan programme is being funded and coordinated through Economic Development, with colleagues being trained to deliver to the target cohort;

(p)  The Exploitation and Violence Reduction Hub (EVR Hub) was established in October 2018 to increase multi-agency support and capacity to stop ‘at risk’ individuals from committing offences and empowering them to make positive changes in their lives;

(q)  The EVR Hub is delivering the Street Aware programme in schools to teach children about the dangers of weapon-enabled violence. Tiers 1,2 and 3 involve class presentations, assembles and positive citizenship lessons delivered to Year 6,7,8,9 and 10 pupils. Tier 4 involves a targeted 6-week group work session to avoid exclusion from school, which may put them further at risk. Finally, Tier 5 is a direct referral to the Hub for consultation and targeted invention; 

(r)  If ‘at risk’ individuals go on to offend, the Youth Justice Service manages them.

Questions from the Board were responded to as follows:

(s)  Possibility that in some areas of the city, Street Aware assemblies and presentations may need to be delivered to year groups below Year 6;

(t)  Other programmes in schools, such as building healthy relationships tie into the Street Aware programme;

(u)  Siblings play a crucial role into whether people are more vulnerable to committing weapon-enabled violence. For example, someone may be drawn into gang culture if their elder sibling was involved to.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  share the presentation with the Police Crime Commissioner’s Youth Commission;

(2)  look into cooperating with the Department for Work and Pensions as part of the Serious Youth Violence and Exploitation Programme.