Funded by the West Midlands Violence Reduction Partnership
The West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit has granted funding to FITCAP to work together to reduce crime and prevent violence. The format of the project is to place people on the school routes to and from Tudor Grange Academy in Solihull Town Centre, where we see an increased level of antisocial and violent activity at the beginning and end of the school day. Step Together Workers seek to develop relationships with young people, offer a point of safety, diffuse and de-escalate in the event of incident or rising community tensions.
We work closely with West Midlands Police Neighbourhood Policing Teams and schools to ensure robust information sharing to safeguard young people. All staff are DBS checked, safeguard trained and have experience working with children and young people in education and community settings.
The academic year of 2021/22 has been completed, and we have been granted further funding to continue the project into the 2022/23 year.
More school children kept safe on journey to and from school
Youth workers are taking up position in a further 17 areas of our region to help keep pupils safe on the journey to and from school.
The rapidly expanding scheme, called Step Together, is led by the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit and launched at Erdington Academy last month.
The initiative has proved so popular that youth workers are now looking out for students in areas including Lozells, the Jewellery Quarter, Newtown, Sutton and Sparkbrook in Birmingham, as well key locations in Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
The youth workers will be placed in busy areas, where lots of pupils commute to and from schools.
The scheme has been made possible thanks to a host of partners who have worked with the Violence Reduction Unit, including local councils, police, schools, businesses, parents and community members. All the partners shared one aim, which was to have more trusted adults in place to protect young people from potential violence, bullying and offenders.
Young people, school staff and community members have come together to identify where along the route the youth workers would make the most difference.
In total, 18 routes have been established across the West Midlands and will operate until the end of the school year 2022.
The region’s Violence Reduction Unit has been successful in securing £1.2 million funding from the Home Office and the Youth Endowment Fund to trial the scheme as part of a national pilot.
If this approach increases young people’s safety, as well as improving school attendance, other schools and communities around the country may also adopt the scheme.
The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster said: “I’m really pleased to see this initiative being rolled out rapidly across the West Midlands.
“It’s so important that our young people feel safe not only when they are at school, but also when they’re travelling to and from it.
“Youth violence is far too high and projects like this, led by the Violence Reduction Unit, are really good examples of how to keep our children safe.”
Meanwhile, the Director of the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit Claire Gollop, said: “This project demonstrates what can be achieved when communities, schools, local partnerships and the police take collective responsibility for something as fundamental as making sure our children arrive at school safely and feeling ready to learn.
By providing trusted adults who can mentor and encourage children on their way to school, we are hoping to improve attendance and help keep our young people in education.
The journey home is also an important transition, where lots of young people converge in predictable places – it’s a route which every child deserves to make without fear.”
The Youth Endowment Fund is contributing more than £400,000 to the scheme. Its Executive Director is Jon Yates: “Too many young people in the West Midlands live in fear of violence.
“Step Together is an important project with the potential to change things.
“We hope that we can learn from the early work being done right here in the region, and potentially work to expand the scheme to other areas of the country.”
The West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit is a team made up of representatives from local councils, education, health, youth, faith, community groups and the police which has been established to prevent violence in our region.
It was launched in late 2019 to help organisations work together effectively to tackle the root causes of violence.
