Our Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) is one of twenty VRPs across the country. Established in 2019 and funded by the Home Office, it was created to prevent and reduce violence affecting children and young people.
We want to prevent violence from occurring as well as ensuring that support is available to those already in the criminal justice system. We use data and evidence, but above all we ask the people involved “what has happened to you, to get to this point?”. We are seeking to encourage all professionals to be trauma aware which will provide a safe environment for children and young people to talk about their experiences and to access the right level and type of support.
The team is made up of a range of specialists, leading and commissioning work regionally and across the seven local authority areas. Each area has a local violence reduction partnership, where they co-ordinate their multi-agency response to violence affecting young people. The VRP play a key role in providing agencies and local partnerships with funding, toolkits, evidence and good practice to improve their response.
We have a team of delivery managers responsible for leading regional conversations on how we can improve health, criminal justice and education systems to support violence prevention. We also have a delivery team leading conversations with communities and local agencies to help them to understand the role they can play in reducing violence. The team are in schools and other settings every day delivering a range of training to professionals and children and young people.
We have recently produced a regional violence reduction strategy which describes our ambition as a region and how we are going to work together to keep our children and young people safe.
For more information, visit the VRP website.
