This is the first of what we hope will be many good practice reports. The reports will highlight initiatives or work that we think are particularly interesting or promising. These reports will not be hugely detailed or run to tens of pages. They will aim to provide a snapshot of each piece of work and provide contact details if you want to get further information. Of course, it is vital that you, as practitioners, know whether the approaches we refer to here have been fully evaluated. We won’t shy from bringing you details of new approaches which haven’t yet been evaluated, but where we do, we will be clear that, promising as the work may be, it will be some time before we can be confident that it has been found to be effective.

The Hackney approach to a youth crime reduction strategy

Findings from the evaluation of the Summer Splash schemes
Islington’s experiences developing
Acceptable Behaviour Contracts

Do you have any good practice to share?

THE HACKNEY APPROACH

The Hackney Safer Communities Executive (the statutory partnership group for crime and disorder reduction) has appointed a sub-committee to develop proposals for a Hackney Youth Crime Reduction Strategy.  The sub-committee held its first meeting recently and will meet every few weeks over the coming months. The group includes senior representation from Education, the Police, Community Safety, Drugs Action and Youth Offending.  Following the first meeting, it is to be expanded to include Social Services, the Youth Service, the Network for Youth and Housing, and the Youth Crime Prevention team.

Hackney consider their top priority to be the need to map all of the services which are provided for young people in the area. After they have completed the mapping, they intend to consider what role each service plays, or could play, in youth crime reduction, how effective those services are, and what scope there is for improving them or joining them up. Hackney recently carried out a best value review of their services for youth and they are using the findings from that review as a basis for this work.

In addition, following the first meeting of the group, they have circulated a questionnaire around the borough which attempts to capture details on all of the relevant services which are provided by Hackney. Once a strategy has been developed and agreed within the group, the sub-committee will be responsible for ensuring that it is agreed across the borough and its partners, by submitting it for agreement by the Safer Communities Executive and the Local Strategic Partnership.