Agenda item

[Report of the Director for Children’s Services. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety, and Engagement.]

Haringey Council's strategy to prevent serious youth violence, support young people on the periphery of involvement in violence, and reintegrate youth offenders into the community.

The Cabinet Member for Communities, Safety and Engagement provided a brief overview of the strategy setting out some key points, including his reflections on the recent positive partnership events. These illustrated the core concept of the strategy, which was supporting young people at risk through close community partnership working, including voluntary sector partners and schools, and listening to young people’s views. The Cabinet Member described the Youth Summit event held this morning which had been organised by partners at THFC college. The Cabinet Member remarked on this being a fantastic event with six schools presenting their ideas around tackling serious youth violence. There were further similar positive events planned, and the Cabinet Member was looking forward to meeting the organisers of these events to take forward the actions of the strategy, concerning engagement and involvement.

The Cabinet Member further reflected on a recent event to consult on the strategy where a number of issues had been raised by young people which would be taken forward. The action plan attached to the strategy would maintain the involvement of young people, and include continually hearing their views about keeping them safe. This was an essential component of the action plan, attached to the strategy and a dissimilar stance to the current national dialogue where the focus was on enforcement rather than engagement.

The Cabinet Member outlined the significant efforts undertaken to ensure that the strategy had been influenced by young people’s views and experiences. This had involved the input of 70 young people in Tottenham, and also considering the views/research of the Godwin Lawson Foundation presentation at full Council in July 2018 as a central reference point.

The Cabinet Member felt that Haringey had some exceptional projects working with children and young people and the work of these projects was further highlighted.

Care leavers were well supported by the Children’s service and having good outcomes, demonstrating the heart of the strategy’s focus, a strong positive environment for Children and Young People.

The strategy focused on children that were vulnerable that need the most support. In particular, children with special educational needs and those excluded from schools. Improving outcomes for these children was essential.

The Cabinet Member concluded that the current national situation with knife crime was unacceptable and, as a borough, it was important to move forward with tackling this issue, in what would be a challenging time. The strategy and action plan set out the framework for delivering this.

In response to a question from Cllr Berryman, the launch of the Young Londoners fund was referred to as a positive intervention. The approach was about supporting work with community partners and enabling a programme to be developed which would help steer young people away from gang violence. The project “exodus” was referred to as a good example of a local project, which could be funded to take this work forward. The funding was also focused on: supporting young people with mental health issues, helping young people avoid gang involvement and developing their experience of work.

This funding would help the Council build on existing work with community organisations.

In response to a question from the Leader, the Cabinet Member agreed the importance of working with police colleagues as enforcement had a role in tackling knife crime. A recent police operation was referred to which illustrated Police enforcement intervention. This example also demonstrated the support police needed from the community to get intelligence and stop knife crimes occurring. It was well recognised that an enforcement based approach was not a long term solution and it was crucial to focus on vulnerable young people and keeping them out of the justice system.

The Cabinet Member had seen the effects of the increase in knife crime, including the coercive nature of the crimes being committed, involving younger children that have been groomed into this situation which was truly shocking.

The Cabinet Member concluded that the issue was supporting enforcement, but the idea that knife crime could be solved alone, by this method, was not correct.

In response to Cllr Ogiehor – questions, the following information was noted:

·         Criteria for working with community projects involved building on established local partnerships and strong involvement in local partnerships. A Tottenham care based organisation project was highlighted as a good example of where local expertise and good practise combining. This local organisation had support from an external organisation that had developed a gang exit programme, delivered in a number of youth offending institutions.

• The Cabinet Member welcomed scrutiny of the proposed Joint Executive board and accepted the role and merit of this function on different levels of the governance structure of the Council.
• In terms of the London wide engagement role of the Council in addressing the issues in the strategy, the Cabinet Member referred to his role on the London Councils communities group and how respective Council Community Safety leads were working together to agree similar actions that can be taken forward.
• In relation to accessing the funding provided by the Young Londoners Fund, the funding criteria enabled a mixture of organisations to apply and the Council would be considering the themes of the strategy and structure of the organisations applying, ensuring they have local knowledge. The Council would also be taking account how external expertise can be obtained through use of the funding.

RESOLVED

1. To approve the Young People at Risk Strategy attached at appendix 1.
2. To approve the Young People at Risk Action Plan attached at appendix 2.
3. To note the Young People at Risk Evidence Base attached at appendix 3
4. To note the Young People at Risk Equalities Impact Assessment attached at appendix 6.

Reasons for decision

Haringey can be proud of its strong, connected, and cohesive communities Young people are able to grow up free from experience of violence in the vast majority of Haringey’s communities, achieving highly thanks to excellent schools, supportive families, and positive role models from all walks of life. Violent crime is falling faster in Haringey than in London as a whole. In the last year, we have seen 20% fewer knife injury victims under 25 years old.

However, serious youth violence (SYV) is an issue that has devastating consequences for too many young people in Haringey. A spike in violent incidents resulting in deaths of young people in London in 2018 necessitates concerted action across the system, in order to ensure that all our young people can grow up free from fearing or experiencing violence.

These developments require the Council and its partners to adopt a new approach to tackling SYV, taking the opportunity to learn from localities that have achieved successful outcomes.

To achieve maximum impact, all partners need to work together as a system. The Young People at Risk strategy will take a whole systems approach to preventing youth violence, based on a public health model. This means working across the whole partnership and with communities to implement evidence-based measures to address vulnerabilities and build resilience.

In order to help Haringey’s young people stay safe, we need to address the drivers of serious youth violence. Accordingly, the Young People at Risk strategy seeks to achieve the following outcomes:

Strong communities: Safe communities with positive things for young people to do, where there are strong role models and trust in institutions
Strong families and healthy relationships: Positive family environments, low levels of family stress, good parenting; and young people able to develop strong, healthy relationships with peers and trusted adults

Positive mental health and wellbeing: Confident, happy and resilient young people who are able to cope with negative experiences, setbacks, and stress

High achievement and opportunity: Young people thriving in school, with positive aspirations for the future and access to employment and training opportunities to get there

Reduction in Serious Youth Violence: Young people are protected from exploitation and from experience of serious youth violence

Alternative options considered

Do Nothing

The strategy would not be developed and adopted. This would compromise the Council and the partnership’s capacity to reduce and prevent SYV in Haringey and thereby jeopardise the fulfilment of the manifesto pledges and Borough Plan outcomes outlined above. It is not mandatory to have a Young People at Risk strategy. However, not having one would fail to signal the Council’s intent and commitment on this issue.