Violence and Vulnerability Unit
Supporting local areas and partnerships to work together more effectively to better understand serious and organised crime and exploitation issues.
Supporting local areas and partnerships to work together more effectively to better understand serious and organised crime and exploitation issues.
All areas
Free 1 day support funded by the Home Office
This is an opportunity for areas seeking support to have access to a wide range of VVU subject matter experts. This resource can be used freely and innovatively by areas seeking support from a wide range of subject matter experts. Previous examples on how this has been used include:
Support the capture of effective practice.
Provide assurance of continued area progress.
Sense check on Locality Review progress.
Bespoke deep dive e.g. education involvement, health contribution, Social care action against threshold.
Training and or awareness raising for stakeholder staff
Training on new and emerging trends
Help develop an analysts forum for qualitative and quantitative data picture.
Presentation of national findings from 100+ Locality Reviews & Strategic Framework Assessments completed around the UK
Collaborative conversations with emerging areas of concern to discuss risk management e.g. Universities, PRUs, primary schools.
Basecamp is an online forum that hosts a vast array of discussions, advice, events, files and text documents on this subject. Membership to the forum is vast as it offers access to over 500 professionals from areas across the UK all working on this agenda.
If you are interested in any of our support offers, please contact us to book your free visit / consultation
Senior leadership and strategic managers
Match funded by home Office further details on repuest
Provide local areas and partners with a menu of enforcement tools and tactics based on evidence and understanding
Increasingly, crime is being committed in private spaces, rather than the public sphere, and this type of crime often involves the criminal exploitation of children and adults on a physical, sexual or financial
basis. For many areas in the UK this is becoming a major concern as gang activity based around “county lines” is impacting heavily in a number of areas and leading to increasing reports of serious violence.Tackling this threat has to be everybody’s business. In order to ensure that work to tackle gangs and groups is as effective as possible, there needs to be a common approach across the county in terms of involvement both operationally and strategically, managed and planned through a strategic framework.
The Violence and Vulnerability Unit framework is based around 5 themes to establish countywide common principles
Data / Intelligence
Governance
Enforcement/cross-border working
Prevention
Safeguarding
The framework itself breaks down into 3 key stages.
Stage 1 – a peer review of strategic managers across the region / geographical area. This will be directed at senior strategic managers within the various agencies and units with the
key outcome being the production of a county wide strategic framework to address violence, vulnerability and exploitation across the county.
Stage 2 – We will hold a mixture of interviews, focus groups and workshops with practitioners, facilitated by ourselves and a mix of peer reviewers experienced in dealing with senior
managers. The process is based on the Home Office’s proven and highly regarded peer review process. We will end up with an understanding of what’s possible, what’s realistic and what’s achievable across the region
through the eyes of practitioners.
Stage 3 – The draft Strategic Framework is based around 5 themes and the final framework will consist of key objectives and work based around the themes. The work could be overseen by
a pan regional strategy group and implemented via a delivery sub – group, although it would be desirable for the various Safeguarding boards and the Childrens Strategic Partnerships to oversee elements of the work
around prevention and safeguarding.
Frontline practitioners
Match funded by the Home Office further details on request
The Locality Review is a one-day process for local areas as part of the national strategy to tackle gangs and serious youth violence. It works as a broad-brush set of interviews and focus groups with front-line practitioners to gather information, knowledge and perception whilst building a qualitative picture of the key issues and drivers around county lines, gangs, youth violence and vulnerability. It is a rapid evidential assessment process that focuses on violence and vulnerability.
Enable rapid assessment of issues around gang activity, serious youth violence and victimisation through drawing upon the experiences of practitioners, communities, victims and offenders
Test the prevalence of issues identified through cross-referencing opinions/perception from interviewees/groups and relevant quantitative data
Identify barriers to effectively understanding and tackling local priorities (in relation to threat, risk and harm)
It is crucial to understand that this is not a review of any single organisation’s role, but a process that seeks to identify what local practitioners know or believe about vulnerability at an operational level, understand how the partner agencies are working together operationally to deliver the area’s gang/group and youth violence priorities and examine what blockages are perceived to effect delivery at a frontline level. The review reflects the information gathered from the practitioner interview timetable and may highlight communication issues where process exist as well as potential gaps and barriers to identification and effective intervention.
Universal
Details on request
The online training course is intended to familiarise participants with some basic concepts in the field of gangs, vulnerability and exploitation. It comprises a short video presentation, some specific learning resources and a multiple-choice assessment based on case study scenarios. By organising the learning in this way, the on-line course is designed to help participants:
Understand the problem from a national perspective
Understand what might be going on locally
Understand who to contact and how to register /report concerns
This is a simple format, easy to use and cost effective in that participants are selected and targeted by managers as being those who will benefit most. It does not require days away from their posts but can be managed within their working day.
The course format allows for results to be fed back to training managers and commissioners so they can monitor how effective the course has been in equipping frontline staff with the right knowledge and information to recognise local gang activity.
ONGOING SUPPORT
All areas involved with the VVU will continue to have free access to a wide range of ongoing support. This includes
Free follow up VVU support
Invite to the national VVU monthly teleconference
Free access to the Home Office Ending Gang Violence Exploitation BASECAMP