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Tuesday, February 18, 2025

West Bridgford headteacher raises concerns over high levels of youth violence

The headteacher of a West Bridgford secondary school has spoken of “high levels” of youth violence and criminal exploitation affecting her pupils as she welcomed a new strategy to get more support for children affected.

Since 2019 the Government been helping to fund a Violence Reduction Unit, which operates across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

A wider Violence Reduction Partnership, made up of organisations including Nottingham City Council, the police and the voluntary sector, has been working to clamp down on youth violence and crime ever since.

As part of this work a ‘Youth Charter’ has been created on advice from young people to determine what support they believe is needed most.

Sandra Stapleton, headteacher at The Nottingham Emmanuel School in West Bridgford, expressed her interest in the charter due to “high levels” of youth violence locally.

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Speaking during a city council meeting discussing the issue, she said one example of recent trouble included reports of mass disorder in the city warned about by police.

Nottinghamshire Police issued a dispersal order on Thursday (September 21) after large groups of school children took part in an intimidating internet prank.

The force said the gatherings were believed to be linked to an online challenge involving pupils forcibly removing the school ties of children from different schools and posting them on social media.

However, Ms Stapleton also criticised the fact she had not been told about the charter until now.

“My children mainly come from the Meadows and Clifton and we have got high levels of Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) and Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and serious violence in school, I have never heard of this,” she said during the Children’s Partnership Board meeting on June 26.

“When was it rolled out to schools to sign up to? It sounds really interesting but I’ve not come across it before?

“I’d love to get involved and I’m sure the vast majority of secondary heads would love to get involved in something like this.

“The prime examples are the issues last week with mass disorder in town and local areas, if we could get involved in something like this it would be absolutely brilliant.”

Responding Erica Doran, the interim head of the Violence Reduction Partnership, admitted there was “more work to be done” with schools.

“There is more work to be done to improve the connections to work we do and the education sector to really bring them on board and how we can support each other with the issue of early intervention and prevention of serious violence,” she said.

“There is more work to do and the fact you don’t know about it says a lot and I think moving forward I would like to send you those links and see how we can support each other in implementing some of these principles.”

According to the Violence Reduction Partnership, males aged between 15 and 19 account for the vast majority of knife point robbery victims and offenders.

Furthermore, young males aged 20 to 24 continue to account for the vast majority of known perpetrators of serious violence in the city and county.

Ms Doran said she had concerns about youth violence due to the city council’s financial position and cuts to youth services.

In a bid to help fill the gap, a review of youth work was commissioned and done by Nottingham Trent University in 2019, which recommended a ‘Youth Charter’ be created.

In the years since a youth work project lead has been employed and better youth worker training has been introduced.

Voluntary organisations can now sign up to the Youth Charter and practitioners will have access to up-to-date training so they are more aware of  the needs of young people.

Young people’s charity Base 51 will provide the training.

Voluntary organisations are also due to be visited and assessed by young people themselves to ensure they are providing the correct services.

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