Working with Young People
What do we do?
Gloucestershire Police Authority wants to engage with young people from around the county, to seek their views and opinions when designing and developing policing strategy, and to encourage them to support the police in building safer and stronger communities. We recently adopted the Hear By Right Framework to help us identify where we can further include young people. This shows where there is greater need for future support of officers and engagement with young people.
Engaging and working with young people is part of every day practice for modern police officers and PCSOs. We deliver training to local police teams, offering opportunities to work with young people. We work closely with local policing teams and the Constabulary’s schools engagement team to make sure that young people are included in decisions that affect them.
Matt leads this work. Under his guidance, young people have participated in team building activities, attended residential experiences, designed workshops and presentations, been part of interview panels and have directed their own learning in partnership with the Constabulary. The work is dependent upon the support of other youth works to reach young people, so Matt is based in the County Council Youth Support Service. In turn the Service is supported to deliver programmes around crime, health and safety.
How does this help?
By including young people in policing strategy we are creating a more informed policing service for a larger proportion of our community. Young people are supported to participate in local democratic processes through forums and events. Many young people have received accreditation for their positive contributions and time volunteered in the community.
Informal education programmes have been designed and developed by young people around crime and safety, often with some contributing to the facilitation of the session or events. Groups have applied and accessed pockets of money to facilitate events and programmes of work, planning not just for themselves but for the benefit of young people in their communities.
Recent achievements have included the development of a tool kit for officers and other professionals looking to work with young people around crime and safety issues. This kit captures many of the sessions used and shared by professionals end enables fellow colleagues to draw upon them when they are required. A young female Muslim group have been meeting consistently and over time have developed a presentation that gives and insight to service providers on what it is like to be young, female and Muslim in Gloucester. As well as individual pieces of project work the young people have had the chance to meaningfully comment on their experiences of the police and policing of the county.
Feed back from the young people has been very positive and many have had the chance to enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution in the areas where they live.
We work in partnership with agencies across the County from Education, Health and Criminal Justice and have formed many links. This is often the catalyst to form new relationships between youth groups and the agencies who wish to support them.
Matt is based at an office in Cheltenham and can be contacted here
Keep checking this site for regular updates of projects, stories and news of previous and forthcoming events.
