CURV Funding
Cleveland received notification of three years Violence Reduction Unit funding by the Home Office in April 2022.
In Cleveland, the unit is called CURV – Cleveland Unit for the Reduction of Violence.
Funding has enabled the PCC to establish a team to develop a long-term joined-up, preventative approach to tackling serious violence.
The Commissioner’s office takes a leading role in bringing together organisations and agencies.
In accordance with Home Office grant arrangements, there CURV needs to fund a range of prevention, early intervention and tertiary interventions.
This Serious Violence Funding aims to prevent young people and adults from becoming involved in serious and violent crime.
The key aims of this this funding are to deliver the following:
- Reductions in Serious Violence Offences
- Reductions in hospital admissions for assaults with a sharp object
- Reductions in homicides
Activities and interventions supported by this funding are to link with the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) toolkit of interventions and especially those deemed ‘high impact’ in reduction of serious violence.
They should include the following:
- A focus on youth violence in public spaces
- Measures to steer young people away from serious violence, crime, or potential harm.
A&E Navigators
A&E navigators are highlighted as a high impact intervention (primarily tertiary) by YEF.
They have already been delivered in various areas throughout the United Kingdom.
A&E navigator programmes place a case worker, called a ‘navigator’, in hospital emergency rooms. They support children and young people with a violence-related injury.
Programmes can recruit navigators from a range of backgrounds. They may include youth work, social work, nursing, probation, and medicine.
Navigators try to develop trusting relationships with the injured parties, provide informal mentoring, and help them access services.
There are many ways in which A&E navigator programmes may prevent children/clients becoming involved in crime and violence.
Being a victim of violence is strongly associated with future involvement in violence.
Providing support after an incident could protect vulnerable children from this vicious cycle.
Young people may also trust navigators more than other agencies so may be more open to engaging with services.
Funding
Discussions have taken place with the Alcohol Care Team (ACT) within South Tees Hospital Trust to enter into a partnership agreement to add two (2) Serious Violence (SV) Navigators to the ACT team. within James Cook’s A&E departments. All parties agreed to this in a joint meeting on the 5th June 2023.
Prior to the above, CURV’s Strategic Delivery Group agreed on 10 May 2023 to fund a team at James Cook Hospital NHS Trust. This was in partnership with the ACT. The team will consist of two Serious Violence Navigators. The group includes partners from, Cleveland Police, Probation, NHS, and the Local Authorities.
As part of this funding allocation, and as per the service specification:
- CURV is jointly commissioning a hospital intervention and community intervention service across Cleveland in partnership with the NHS ACT Team. The service will comprise of 2 Full Time (FTE) ‘Navigators’, with appropriate administrative, management and IT support to work alongside and with Recovery Officers within ACT. There is an expectation that the Team will be flexible to demand, identify and utilise community and partnership spaces.
- The Service will build on and complement effective partnership working with and between community providers, statutory partners and the hospital.