Winners – Lancashire
Runners Up – Nottinghamshire
Third Place – East Yorkshire
Highly Commended – Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne & Wear
High Sheriffs’ Association Award – Tyne & Wear
Burnett Presentation Award – Nottinghamshire
Special Award – Lincolnshire
Project Summaries
Lancashire: By Young People 4 Young People
One of the neighbourhood policing team’s tasks is to go into schools and deliver talks to pupils about keeping safe in their day to day lives. The police cadets attend the school talks as pupils and they identified that the material was out of date, especially around staying safe online and social media.
The cadets put their own lesson plans together and delivered them to the local primary and high schools. Each lesson included a question and answer session where the pupils could ask honest questions and make it as interactive as possible.
The project was a big success with the cadets’ lessons being used by the local policing team and youth offending teams. All the recipient schools have asked for them to reattend to deliver their lessons to new pupils, and other local schools have invited the cadets in.
Nottinghamshire: Support Through Sport
At the age of 16, Tranai found himself in a similar situation to many young people within inner-city communities and began to get involved with the negative influences around him. After starting boxing at a local club, Tranai was able to shift his mindset and applied the attributes that he gained through sport to his general life. Tranai managed to achieve good grades in his final year of school, but many of his peers did not and so he did his best to support those around him through sport and mentoring. setting up Support Through Sport.
Tranai is hands on, and at every opportunity the team will always do their best to inspire young people and encourage pro-social behaviours and youth development.
Alongside sport-based intervention and intensive mentoring, Support Through Sport also delivers workshops, positive trips and experiences, volunteering programmes, leadership projects, motivational talks and outreach in the community.
East Yorkshire: TBZ Community garden
The two young brothers that planned and delivered the project had been involved in anti-social behaviour in their area, regularly coming to the attention of the police. A lack of provision for young people led to community tensions about them hanging about and behaving in an anti-social manner.
Supported by their Youth Justice worker, the boys decided to transform a disused and overgrown area of their street into a community garden in memory of their older brother Ryan, who they lost to suicide, creating a safe space for young people to gather.
The local policing team have identified that the garden has reduced reports of anti-social behaviour, connecting the street as a whole, and young people gathering there respect what it stands for. A neighbour says it is a pleasure to speak to the young people that use it.
By supporting the garden, police have forged positive relationships with the young. The two boys have not been ‘dealt with’ by the Police for any criminal activity since they started the work.
Merseyside: KidsKast
KidsKast is a podcast made by ‘Kids for the Kids’. KidsKast interviews do a deep dive into choices and consequences.
This project aims to educate children and young people (CYP) about the serious consequences of crime, to prevent and reduce initial offending behaviours, reduce re-offending, and enhance community cohesion. The aim is to support CYP to understand the consequences of crime, and help them to navigate their way out of ASB and other potentially criminal situations.
The impact of the project is to gain noticeable improvements in CYP engagement, improve feelings of self-worth, and to stimulate motivation so that CYP realise their potential.
The CYP behind KidsKast were and still are instrumental in the foundation and growth of KidsKast. They set out designing the logo, producing and structuring interviews, selecting / approaching guests and then conducting the interviews.
South Yorkshire: Make a Change
Carlton was an 11 year old pupil at the Pupil Referral Unit when he attended the Make a Change presentation. The impact on him was profound and he made the choice to change his life path, handing in weapons at the same time.
Carlton assists in the delivery of the programmes and educates other young people in similar situations to those he experienced, and realising the consequences before it was too late. Make a Change uses young people’s lived experience to educate other young people to make life saving choices. Young people relate to their peers’ experiences and the programmes are delivered to schools, colleges and community centres.
Carlton has authenticity, commitment, and drive. The positive impact Carlton and the project in general has had on individuals with chaotic lifestyles is a joy to see.
Tyne & Wear: Operation Hayness (GRIP)
In early 2022, there was an increasing number of calls received by Northumbria Police regarding youth anti-social behaviour fuelled by alcohol consumption. The objective of this project was to identify premises that were selling alcohol to minors – a known factor in youth disorder which was having an extremely detrimental effect on the safety and wellbeing of the local community.
The Cadets believed that they could be of assistance. In the presence of plain clothed Police Officers and Trading Standards officials, the Cadets stepped up, offered their help and, acted as test purchasers at newsagents, convenience stores and off-licences surrounding several of the North Tyneside metro stations.
Thanks to the efforts of the Cadets, three shops were issued with fixed penalty notices and now risk losing their licence to sell alcohol due to their illegal actions. A further positive was the ripple effect on other businesses selling alcohol, with local intelligence confirming that there was a reduction in the area of alcohol-based youth anti-social behaviour.
Lincolnshire: Seven Knights Ambassadors
A winner of a National Crimebeat award in 2022, Knight School join us once more. The premise is simple, children at the school devise and undertake projects to earn seven different badges.
The Seven Knights initiative takes a proactive approach to community cohesion and social harmony. The children are taught that if something looks wrong, then it probably is and to do something about it. Despite being young they can be the catalyst for action. The objective is to allow children the opportunity to not only devise their own projects but have a voice at meetings and become influential members of the community.
The children in years five and six are all engaged in a project called ‘My Oath’ whereby they consider their actions and positive impact they can have on their community. they also speak in public on crime related subjects including alcohol harm, internet safety, anti-social behaviour and bullying.
Gallery of 2023 Awards
