We have a clear commitment to work towards a safer and stronger Scotland and to achieve this we must strive to remove inequality and injustice from across all our communities. It is a basic human right of everyone to feel safe in their homes and wider communities no matter where they live. We need to ensure we create a feeling of safety and well-being by tackling crime and the associated fear that this has on our communities.
Communities themselves have an important role to play in achieving this. Working with local partners, supporting community events and acknowledging the many positive contributions that children and young people make can all help communities come together to provide a safer environment to live in.
What we will do:
- Promote positive messages about young people and support engagement with communities, including opportunities for intergenerational communication.
- Develop evidence base around effective interventions with young victims
- Continue to work as partners to demonstrate the potential benefits that can be achieved in certain circumstances by adopting a restorative approach to youth offending
- Address issues around media perceptions of young people through the Government's Youth Framework.
Work is ongoing on these 4 objectives, however, a lot of positive work has already been complete.
In 2009 a short term project took place, designed to develop a planned, positive media campaign around young people and offending in four local government areas. It aimed to work with local youth justice teams and local authority communications' departments to deliver positive media coverage for the multi-agency approach in reducing offending. The project was led by Bryan Christie, a former journalist and now media consultant and funded by the Scottish Government.
It was agreed that the consultant would develop ideas and media plans in partnership with local teams and provide on-going support but responsibility for delivering the campaign would rest with local teams. Positive meetings were held with all four local authorities involved - Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee City, Highland and Perth and Kinross - and potential media opportunities were identified, however, only Perth and Kinross and Dumfries and Galloway continued with the pilot as Highland and Dundee did not involve communications' staff from the outset. A report of the findings was published in 2010 and can be viewed here.
From January 2010 four six-month intergenerational pilot projects were funded to explore the impact of and relationships between intergenerational practice, the youth work approach, and community cohesion. The funding came from the Robertson Trust, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Centre for Intergenerational Practice with each pilot project receiving a grant of £10,000. The pilots aimed to:
1. challenge participants' perceptions of the causes of crimes;
2. improve community confidence;
3. have positive outcomes for the participants;
4. identify challenges and opportunities for intergenerational practice.
An evaluation report of the pilots was published in February 2011, highlighting the benefits of intergenerational practice.
Bridging the gap
Bridging the gap - a new report on intergenerational practice in the youth work sector