In April 2022, Cleveland’s OPCC was notified of its successful application for Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) Funding from the Home Office over three years.
This resulted in the establishment of the ‘Cleveland Unit for the Reduction of Violence’ (CURV),
It was tasked to bring together all partners and stakeholders to develop and deliver an intelligence and evidence-led strategy. It will aim to reduce serious violence across Cleveland through a Public Health agenda.
Home Office funding will establish a partnership through the creation of CURV. Its core function is to to provide leadership and strategic coordination of Cleveland’s response to serious violence.
CURV will deliver this by strengthening partnerships, working with communities, and ensuring specified authorities, partners and key stakeholders collaborate across to achieve agreed objectives.
Primary Measures
The primary measures of success are for VRUs to deliver the following:
- A reduction in hospital admissions for assaults with a knife or sharp object and especially among victims aged under 25.
- A reduction in knife-enabled serious violence and especially among victims aged under 25.
- A reduction on all non-domestic homicides and especially among victims aged under 25 involving knives.
Cleveland ranks among the top 10 areas for police recorded knife crime and hospital admissions for knife sharp object assault.
With rates continuing to rise, CURV will prioritise activity that seeks to reduce these metrics.
Activities will be aligned with the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) toolkit of interventions, focusing on those deemed ‘high impact’ or ‘moderate impact’ with ‘high evidence’ in order to contribute to the reduction of serious violence.
Such interventions should deliver the following:
- Effectively engage with under-25s – but not exclude adults;
- Steer young people away from serious violence, crime, or potential harm.
These activities could include sports, arts, crafts, and other activities, including trauma-informed practice training.
This improves the capabilities of staff/professionals to understand the links between serious violence, trauma and neurodiversity. The NE Youth bid for trauma-informed training is in line with this approach.
NE Youth Bid
The bid was reviewed and approved by a multi-agency panel comprising of the PCC, OPCC, North East Probation Service and Voluntary Sector representatives. Key deliverables of the bid include:
- Decided via an Expression of Interest, 8 practitioners will be identified, through both NE Youth and Youth Focus North East’s expansive networks. Across Cleveland these practitioners will engage with young people and signpost to more specialist services and train 2 Healing Together Facilitators.
- Deliver ‘Healing Together Training’- To enable practitioners to have the resources and knowledge they need to work with young people who have experienced trauma. This training and support to organisations across Cleveland, will seek to increase confidence, expertise, capacity, awareness, and capabilities to understand the links between serious violence, trauma and neurodiversity.