Southampton
Tackling serious violence and its root causes is a priority for all partners in Southampton.
Southampton is a vibrant and diverse city of approximately 270,000 residents and many more who travel to the city to work and for leisure.
In Southampton, the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) works closely with Southampton Community Safety Partnership and the Safe City Partnership. This Board oversees the delivery of the Safe City Strategy, and you can read more about how this partnership works to keep people safer here: Safe City Partnership (southampton.gov.uk)
Southampton City Partnership have produced a Safe City Strategy for 2022 -2027 and have set out 3 priorities:
- Keeping people safe from harm
- Prevent and reduce offending
- Creating safe and stronger communities
For further information on this strategy, click here: Safe City Strategy (southampton.gov.uk)
In addition, partners in Southampton are represented at the Hampshire and IOW Strategic Violence Reduction Partnership (SVRP) and work closely with the VRU to address the root causes of serious violence. This is supported by understanding those people that are most vulnerable to serious violence and developing a local strategy for how we focus resources on those people in most need of support.
The VRU works with the Youth Endowment Fund to understand the evidence about what approaches work to prevent serious youth violence in the medium to longer term. You can read more about this here Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit
In addition to the services available in Southampton, the VRU commissions the following services which are available in Southampton:
Future Directions (focused deterrence): This is a strategy that aims to identify young people most at risk of involvement in serious violence and support them towards a path of desistance. Individuals identified for this programme are often highly vulnerable, including to risks such as exploitation. The approach combines clear communication about the consequences of violence with tailored support to help individuals move away from offending, while also involving communities and partner agencies to encourage reintegration and positive outcomes.
RESET programme: This is a community-based intervention for young people aged 18 to 25. The service is voluntary and provides support to those who have offended. It aims to help young people move away from offending behaviour by offering guidance, mentoring, and access to employment, education, and training opportunities, enabling them to make positive and sustainable life choices.
“Get Ready for Construction” programme: This programme is aimed at justice involved children aged 16 to 18 who are identified as being high risk of serious violence and NEET. Individuals are invited to attend a week long course to get relevant qualifications and learn employability skills. They are then mentored for 3 months and supported to achieve the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) card and find pathways into employment.
Pol-ED: This programme allows schools to deliver a series of pre-planned lessons to pupils, enables Police Forces to engage with schools through lessons and assemblies, and enables local authorities and criminal justice partners to facilitate similar pre-planned lessons in their youth settings. Lessons are mapped out against the PSHE curriculum and subjects not covered in other PSHE schemes, created by experts.
Young Futures Prevention Panels (YFPPs):These are multi-agency panels designed to identify, assess and refer into effective support young people who may be vulnerable to being drawn into crime. Individuals are identified by using data, where they are referred to a panel, services then have to come to an agreement as to how they can support that individual.
Contact us:
Safe city Partnership: Policy&Strategy@southampton.gov.uk