Issue - meetings

Members received a presentation from George Shipman relating to the areas of development and approach to Knife Crime and Child Exploitation within Warwickshire.

George Shipman highlighted the key points which had been covered in a recent Member development session.  The briefing had looked at the current approach and the adoption of new approaches, focusing on partnership working with the police, health colleagues and others.

He advised that a large focus was on development of the exploitation strategy, which was made up of the different approaches required for different ages and groups of people.  Part of the culture change was how early work was undertaken with young people initially, understanding their development needs which could include speech, language and emotional development.  There was also a need to understand the changes that took place as children got older and the increase in risk taking behaviour.  George Shipman explained that some individuals felt they had no choice and the internet and social media had a large impact on young people.

George Shipman outlined the Youth Endowment Fund to Members which was aimed at 13 to 17 year olds, either victims or perpetrators.  Many areas of behaviour were linked connecting the police, gangs, social care and attendance issues.  The issues affecting victims and perpetrators were often similar and officers were working on understanding and responding to those needs.

The update included the numbers of offences and number of children offending, which had reduced from 147 to 120 on 2023/2024.  There was a reduction in weapon related offences, with the data separated further by district and borough.  Members noted that all of those incidents had been committed my males ranging between 15 and 16 years of age.  Support had developed from a County wide team to a North / South approach and the lead worker was no longer a social worker with the team being multi agency and multi-disciplinary.

The teams were co-located with the Police and Barnados and comprised of different workers with a range of focus.  There were also a number of family support workers able to better target support and twenty minute focused sessions could be more effective than an hour long session.  The substance abuse service had a drugs worker to support staff and help to increase knowledge, keeping track of new developments.

In response to those youngsters that often went missing, return to home interviews were carried out by specialist missing workers to ensure those relationships were built and maintained.  Members were reminded that sleep also had a large impact on mental health.

The prevention work was seeing a reduction in crime in the area and nationally and the ambition was to maintain this focus moving forwards.  The Council had also invested in ‘Loud Mouth’, a theatre company that provided training and education programmes in safeguarding and relationships.  

In conclusion, George Shipman explained that the aim was to think about communities, how to drill down into them and taking local issues into account.  Colleagues were working to understand the best  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6