North Meets South - Youth Unity

Fully Funded Gang Awareness Workshops

North Meets South Big Local is a resident organisation led by the people of Marks Gate and North Chadwell Heath.

We exist to ensure the efficient use of a million pounds allocated to the area by the Big Lottery Fund (Local Trust), to address the unique needs of the people that live in our area. Our Steering Group of residents, consult and engage with their peers to identify what is important to people in our area. This information is used to create local plans for the area.

Physical improvement of public facilities / community assets within the area: The aim of these projects is to beautify public spaces in the area; encourage residents of all ages to use existing green / public spaces in creative ways

Social activities for residents of every age group: These projects are opportunities to bring the community together, creating avenues for residents to socialise and make connections.

Positive attitudes and opportunities: These are skills and capacity building projects which foster a “can-do” mentality within the area by encouraging residents to take responsibility for change

Year 10 and 11 for secondary schools and Year 5 & 6 for primary schools
one session for each year group plus one session for teachers/parents

Why?

In response to our community research in 2020, NMS is due to launch a gang awareness and anti- grooming project in partnership with schools within the area. Our aim is to run a series of awareness workshops in both Primary and Secondary Schools, as an early intervention programme to target young people before they are engaged with/ involved in gang or criminal activities. We have commisioned Youth Unity to deliver this workshops

Grooming awareness Workshops

An interactive transition programme which will covers how to identify grooming by gang members, being safe online and around the community, self-awareness, identity and knife crime.

The workshops will be conducted in individual tutor groups to encourage pupils to share their experience with people they feel safe with.

Sessions for parents and teachers

Gangs & exploitation awareness workshops for parents and teachers: 45mins that raises awareness of cuckooing and vulnerabilities which are signs of criminal activities

The workshops are all facilitated by Youth Unity, an organisation established to provide effective help and support to young people and adults affected by group violence (gangs), drugs and other forms of exploitations (e.g., Human trafficking, CSE & extremism).

They facilitate a series of programmes dedicated to informing parents, carers, and teaching professionals against the risks of gang culture and the dangers of specific manipulations young people encounter whether it is sexual or criminally motivated. Their work is aimed at breaking down behaviour stereotypes about young people and building bridges of quality communication that bring understanding between social groups.

Base on the evidenced feedback from clients, we have identified and implemented solutions in:

Increased staff confidence
Improved localised perspective specific to Home Grown and County Lines activity
Increased identification of safeguarding risks
Earlier identification of positive intervention opportunities
Increased engagement with the vulnerable client cohort
Increased joint information/intelligence contribution
Improved Trusting Relationships with vulnerable young people, parents/carers and deprived communities
Helping our most vulnerable have greater resilience in saying ‘no’ to Group Violence (Gangs), Drugs and Exploitation
Improved quality of bespoke professional training
Better safeguarding young people from harm and enhanced professional awareness of safeguarding risks
Increased joint information sharing and joint working, specific to those most ‘at risk’ from Group Violence, Gangs, Drugs and other forms of Exploitation
Our community cohesion festival is a community peace campaign and celebration of young Londoners’ achievements; to shine light on the positive contributions they make to society; to promote the positive benefits of community participation and social activism and to empower vulnerable young people with practical ways to remove violence from their lives.

Transistion workshops for year 5 & 6

Need to Know resilience training for Transition Stage pupils

‘Gangs, Drugs, Violence and other forms of Exploitation’

Josh’s Story is an interactive session delivered to young people at Years 5 and 6 (aged 9-11 years), which is a particularly vulnerable group experiencing a significant stage of transition into secondary education. The session builds their resilience to saying ‘No’ to drugs and violence and helps them develop the cognitive (thinking) skills to better understand the risks they may well experience and to make the right positive choices. This is explored through the experience of ‘Josh’, his family and his friends. Josh’s Story focuses on the following areas: – friendships, always being truthful, exploring and understanding the risks associated with drugs, raising awareness of peer pressure, the impact of group violence, better appreciating the consequences of wrong decisions being made and the importance of seeking positive support from teachers and peers.

To date, feedback from schools (staff and children) has been excellent and the young people have produced the most amazing art posters. Clearly, they have been empowered to make a positive difference to saying ‘No’ to drugs and violence