Sharing the latest news from the Violence and Vulnerability Unit Newsletter including;

  • Match day excitement for competition winner
  • Funding on offer for community safety projects
  • Youth Endowment Fund turns five

Match day excitement for competition winner
The sun shone and the sky was blue, as our second Knife Angel competition winner saw Colchester United come back to draw 1-1 with Walsall in their Saturday afternoon match day kick off.
George (pictured) correctly answered questions about the VVU, the PFCC, Colchester United and Colchester City Council in order to win a Colchester United football kit and two tickets to a home game of his choice.
George was presented with his kit and tickets, and was then taken on a tour of the ground – where he even got to meet the Col Utd manager. George went pitch side to see the teams warm up before settling down with his dad to enjoy the game.

Funding on offer for community safety projects
A new grant scheme that aims to improve public safety in Essex is now available from Essex County Council.
Local groups can apply to the Community Safety Initiatives Fund to fund projects or initiatives within their own Essex communities (excluding Southend and Thurrock). The fund aims to improve the safety of residents and address violence and vulnerability.
Local groups have already established great community links and have vast local knowledge. This will help make sure the funding is used in the best way to benefit communities.
Grants from £500 up to £2,000 will be available. Applications close on 12 May.

Youth Endowment Fund turns five
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) turned five last week and is now halfway through its ten year mandate. The YEF was established to prevent children becoming involved in violence by establishing – through research and evaluation – what intervention and prevention methods work best.

Collating the findings from various projects, programmes, and initiatives, the YEF analyses what works so that organisations like the VVU can ensure we use methods that are proven to work – and avoid those that are proven not to!! – when addressing serious violence within our communities.

If we want to make a difference to the experiences, childhoods and lives of our children and young people then we have to be serious about learning from mistakes and taking best practice forward.

In the five years the YEF has been established they have built a library of evidence on what works and what hurts children, and created a toolkit which makes all this evidence available to practitioners – and the public – in plain English and easy to understand language.

At the VVU we use these tools to inform our work, to ensure we are helping improve the outcomes for children and young people in our county.

We wish a very happy 5th anniversary to the Youth Endowment Fund and look forward to continuing to work with them, sharing our evidence from our local work and continuing to learn from others.

 

If you would like to find out more about any of the items in this newsletter please get in touch katie.canning@essex.police.uk    Visit our website www.essexvvu.co.uk or follow us on Twitter @EssexVVU Instagram: @EssexVVU or Facebook: Essex Violence and Vulnerability Unit