In April 2022, Cleveland was informed that it was to receive Home Office funding over 3 years for a Violence Reduction Unit. Titled the Cleveland Unit for the Reduction of Violence (CURV), the funding enabled a partnership to be developed that sought to reduce serious violence across the whole of Cleveland through a more collaborative approach and in accordance with set objectives as outlined in its published Response Strategy.
Activities or interventions funded from CURV’s core budget are to align with the Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit, especially those deemed ‘high impact’ in order to contribute to the continued development of the local, regional and national evidence base that demonstrates ‘what works’ when addressing serious violence.
CURV commissioned a Strategic Needs Assessment (SNA) that provided an in-depth analysis of the causes and drivers of crime across Cleveland, which allowed CURV’s partners to refine the cohorts and localities it wished to prioritise. With weapons enabled violence in Cleveland substantially above the national average, funding to support activities that directly contributed to the following were approved as a priority:
- Reductions in Serious Violence Offences
- Reductions in hospital admissions for assaults with a sharp object
- Reductions in Homicides
The funding
Stipulated within the funding agreement from the Home Office, is a requirement for CURV to adopt a Public Health Approach in tackling serious violence, which means addressing the underlying causes of violence. Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council’s ‘Thrive at 5’ pilot intervention aligns naturally with this requirement.
“Thrive at Five” is a collective impact initiative, aiming to help children in disadvantaged communities achieve improvements in school readiness. Progress against this outcome is measured by the national Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) assessment of a child’s physical, social and emotional, and cognitive development at the end of the Reception Year The results of the EYFS assessments are collected, monitored, and verified nationally.
Children from low-income families are less likely to develop positively across social, emotional, cognitive, and physical measures by the end of their reception year compared to their more advantaged peers and are on average 4.6 months behind by the end of Reception.( 2 Education in England: Annual Report 2020. Education Policy Institute)
The aim
Thrive at Five aims to make a difference to outcomes for children in their early years by:
- Harnessing the power of parents and communities to provide support for their own children and for their peers, and by ensuring parents’ views are used to inform strategies for early years support.
- Providing dedicated capacity to support effective collaboration between the public, private and voluntary sectors.
- Changing ways of working locally and nationally to improve and strengthen the provision of help for parents and children.
- Ensuring that local early years strategies are informed by evidence and science.
Success for Thrive at Five will be measured by assessing the improvement in the number of children moving towards and achieving or exceeding a Good Level of Development (GLD) at the end of reception year, using the nationally recognized Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) assessment.
It has been agreed that 5 key areas are identified these are.
- Grangetown
- Eston
- South Bank
- Dormanstown
- Kirkleatham
These have been chosen by the criteria listed below:
- Proximity and geographical clustering
- Resource Efficiency
- Collaboration and Networking
- Community Building
- Data Collection and Analysis
Population Size: These five wards collectively have an under-5 population of approximately 2,500 children. This population size is considered sufficient for impact assessment through evaluation work while remaining manageable enough to allow for effective engagement with families, communities, and partners. Level of Need was also considered within these areas.
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council seek to co-fund this pilot over four (4) years for which CURV seek to partner for the remainder of its current core budget. Partners are:
- Redcar and Cleveland Council
- Thrive at 5
- Woodsmith Foundation
- CURV
CURV’s contribution to the partnership has been agreed at £20,000 for this and the next financial year.
This was further approved and ratified by the Executive Assurance Group at the meeting held on 5th May 2023, including partners from, Cleveland police, Probation, NHS, and the Local Authorities.
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is the lead partner for the Thrive at 5 pilot, and CURV will contribute to this pilot by granting funds to the Council. The conditions for funding and expected performance frameworks will be outlined in a formal partnership agreement.