Agenda item

Joint briefing note

 

Representatives from West Midlands Police have been invited to attend the meeting for the consideration of this item

 

Councillors P Seaman and B Gittins, Cabinet Member and Deputy Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillors A S Khan and P Akhtar, Cabinet Member and Deputy Cabinet Member for Policing and Equalities, Councillors K Caan and R Ali, Cabinet Member and Deputy Cabinet Member for Public Health and Sport and Councillor K Maton, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills have also been invited to attend.

The Committee considered a Briefing Note on the city-wide approach being taken to keep young people safe in our City. Partners in Coventry held a summit to consider what could be done locally in January, 2019. It was noted that a further summit would be held in 2020.

 

The Briefing Note covered:-

 

·  The Young Persons Violence Prevention Strategy

·  The Public Health Approach

·  Identifying Vulnerable Young People

·  Projects, activities and partnerships and progress made

·  The Police perspective

·  Trend data

 

The Coventry Youth Violence Prevention Partnership Board (CYVPPB) was established in June 2019 and includes senior representatives from Policing, Public Health, Children’s Services, Adult Services, Education, Probation, City of Culture, Faith Groups and Youth Justice.  At its meeting in June 2019, the CYVPPB agreed to draft a multi-agency strategy using a public health approach to address the issue of youth violence in the City. The high-level Strategy was appended to the Briefing Note and was being presented to the Health and Wellbeing Board, the Police and Crime Board and both the Adults and Childrens Safeguarding Boards for consideration and endorsement.

 

The Strategy is based on taking a “public health approach” and is modelled on the Strategy produced by the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit (WMVRU). The WMVRU has been set up by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner as the successor to the West Midlands Violence Prevention Alliance. Supporting the CYVPPB are a Project Board and an Operation Group and their further roles were detailed in a further appendix to the Briefing Note. The Strategy is a 10 year Strategy and this emphasises the long-term commitment of the partnership and recognises that this issue cannot be resolved without a sustained long-term effort.

 

The Briefing Note detailed approach and progress against the following six key objectives in the Strategy:-

 

·  Building Strong Foundations

·  Primary prevention

·  Secondary prevention

·  Tertiary prevention

·  Enforcement and Criminal Justice

·  Attitudinal change using effective communication

 

The Committee noted that even though the strategy is still in draft, a great deal of work has already been undertaken to progress the short-term priorities identified, details of which were included in the Briefing Note. The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner recently sent out a call for providers to bid into a fund which will provide activities for young people across the West Midlands during October half term. Providers were able to bid for up to £5,000 to deliver activities in key crime hotspots across the West Midlands and the following three projects were successful for Coventry:-

 

·  Positive Youth Foundation and Short Football – Hillfields, Wood End and Bell Green

·  Empowr-U- Joe Graham, Wood End, Hillfields

·  Coventry Boys and Girls Club – City Centre

 

Extensive activities have already taking place with schools including:-

 

·  Secondary schools have well established Panels led by Head teachers which meet 6 weekly and include professionals from the police and other relevant agencies to discuss families and incidents where there has been an incident of, or threat of, violent crime.

 

·  Positive Youth Foundation have established a key educational program for Secondary school pupils called Staying Safe and they are also working on funding an increasing number of mentors who can work directly in schools with students who are at risk.

 

·  Violent crime is a key agenda item on Secondary and Primary Heads meetings and there is regular information sharing updates about what more can be done.

 

·  Workshops have begun to be offered to all schools, led by secondary staff to educate then around violent crime directly from ex-gang members.

 

·  There are newly establish Primary Panels, chaired by Heads and including the involvement of the Police and Early Help to emulate the existing Secondary panels. The Briefing Note outlined work undertaken in this regard.

 

·  The Magistrates in Schools project is supporting almost all Primary Schools with a half day programme around justice and democracy, which also tackles elements such as knife crime directly.

 

Details of the Public Health Approach to Knife Crime was also detailed in the Briefing Note. The Partnership Board believes that violence in the City should be approached as a public health issue in that it has root causes, it can be treated, but most importantly, like a disease, it can be prevented. The following steps to build community resilience over the long term by taking a multifaceted prevention approach were detailed:-

 

·  Using data and intelligence to understand and identify the scale and scope of the problem

·  Quantifying the burden at population-level and identifying inequalities and risks

·  Identifying and focussing on defined populations, who may share certain risks

·  Seeking evidence of effectiveness to tackle the problem

·  Generating both long-term and short-term solutions

·  Working with and for communities

·  Not being constrained by organisational or professional boundaries but seeking out system-wide solution delivered through system leadership

·  Scaling up small interventions when evidence demonstrates successes

 

Taking this public health approach, the Briefing Note detailed primary prevention, secondary prevention and treatment actions from a range of partners., as well as prevention work which begins at the earliest possible stage with future parents. Details of work undertaken with Drug and Alcohol Recovery, Mental Health, Domestic Abuse Services and the City Council were highlighted. A large proportion of prevention is delivered through family hubs, where the delivery of early help services are centralised around a building.

 

The Briefing Note also covered:-

 

·  Identifying vulnerable young people, demographics and race data, projects, activities and partnerships

·  The Police Perspective and Trend data

·  Police activities which are currently being mapped against the draft strategy including:-

o  Two university interns who will shortly be joining the Police and will assist in researching strategies used elsewhere for tackling violence to see if they can be deployed in Coventry

o  The Youth Violence Reduction Team have 2 members of staff embedded within 4 family hubs

o  Police have been in discussion with Trading Standards Colleagues about test purchasing knives in local businesses

o  The Active Citizen Fund is being used to support initiatives to engage communities around this agenda

o  The Early Intervention Youth Fund and the Strengthening Families project has seen approximately 170 young people progress through the referral process

o  St Giles Trust are delivering a project in Coventry Police Custody block for those who are under 25 years and arrested for violence/weapons offences

 

The Committee noted that the key to the successful delivery of the actions plans supporting the strategy will be the involvement of young people (under 25) and  that the Board is currently considering the most appropriate way to involve young people across a whole range of ages, experiences and backgrounds.

 

As well as the Briefing Note, the Committee received a comprehensive presentation at the meeting from representatives from West Midlands, Police, the Headteacher of Lyng Hall School, Catch 22 and Positive Youth Foundations as well as City Council officers from Public Health, Education, and Children Services. Further information was circulated in relation to:-

 

·  Police data for crime/trends

·  Funding secured from a variety of funding streams

·  Trend data for permanent exclusions and supported transfers

 

The Committee ask questions and sought clarification on a number of issues including:-

 

·  The impact resource issues have had on the problem and long term solutions in relation to this

·  Demographic data

·  The link between drug crime and an increase in knife crime and work being undertaken in this regard

·  Whether a gendered approach is taken in relation to tackling the problem

·  How duplication is avoided in the multi agency strategy

·  Benchmarking data for the 10 year strategy

·  Work being undertaken in schools including “social immunisation” in relation to providing appropriate information to all young people to stop preventable crime involvement

·  Data ownership between all the partner organisations

·  Work undertaken by volunteers

 

The Committee also received further confidential information in relation to this matter in the private part of the meeting (Minute 29 below refers)

 

On behalf of the Committee, the Chair, Councillor R Brown, thanked all of those present for their contributions to the meeting and commended all of the mutli agency work being carried out in this regard.

 

RESOLVED:-

 

(1)  That, in light of the comprehensive and informative information provided, the Committee express their reassurance by all of the partnership work being undertaken in this regard.

 

(2)  That further consideration be given to this issue once appropriate data is available

 

(3)  That the Committee recommend to the Coventry Youth Violence Prevention Partnership Board that:-

 

a.  That the phase “Social Immunisation” in relation to proving appropriate information to all young people to stop preventable crime involvement be introduced into the Young Persons Violence Prevention Strategy

 

b.  That the Strategy also include a gendered approach to interventions