Rupert Mathews, the Police and Crime Commissioner for LLR, visited our office to hear about the work we do that is supported by the OPCC and VRN. Rupert was impressed with our ability to connect with young people and how along with our business and community partners we support them to develop the soft and hard skills that enable them to live happy, productive and law abiding lives.
UP has seen many successes this quarter:
- 16 participants were referred in Q1, with 12 being continued from Q4 and 6 being closed during Q1.
- UP successfully supported 8 participants into education, training and employment during Q1.
- Catching up with the new Police & Crime Commissioner.
- Disclosure workshops continue with NDND to date 18 women have completed the disclosure training with UP.
- The launch of the ‘Lives not Knives’ animation, which included the support of peer mentors who had previously worked on the UP Project.
- Gaining funding for a PDO, which will enhance and expand the community safety team.
- Participant attending the annual Leicestershire Cares Awards to discuss ‘Lives not Knives’ and to deliver the award to our winning business.
- Confirmation of continuation funding for UP.
Being shortlisted for the Youth Justice award with CYP Now.
UP seen a massive networking success through the community safety team launching a new video co-created with participants on our Unlocking Potential (UP) project on 21/10/2021.
Lives Not Knives was born from our participants wanting to use their voices and lived experience to show the impact of knife crime on perpetrators, victims and their families and divert young people away from violent crime.
Participants were involved in every step of creating the video, from the initial idea and key messages, to storyboarding and doing voiceovers, to presenting the launch, in which over 60 people attended via Zoom, including the Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, representatives from the Violence Reduction Network, professionals from local Youth Justice teams and youth services, along with other voluntary sector organisations tackling violent crime in the city and county.
"WOW, Leicestershire Cares ‘Lives not Knives’ animation is vivid, punchy and powerful. Well done to Siobhan and all of the participants. Great job everybody. This really needs to be seen and seen widely."
“Today went really well, better than I had originally anticipated and to get the feedback we received has shown us that the message and the campaign behind ‘Lives not Knives’ is achieving what we aimed it to. Thank you Siobhan and UP Project, I appreciate the opportunity.”
For upcoming quarter , UP in addition to our nuts and bolt work, will seek to:
- Allocate weekly networking time within staff diaries.
- Create an annual calendar for all WOW tours, workshop, work placement etc to consecutively run on a monthly basis.
- Engage and begin work with HMP Leicester.