Debate: School-run chaperones

Youth workers are chaperoning pupils to and from schools in parts of the West Midlands under a scheme to tackle youth violence.

The Step Together project will see youth workers based along routes to school, acting as trusted adults and a point of contact, to de-escalate potential violence and to build positive relationships.

In total, 18 school routes have been identified by schools, young people and community members to be part of the £1.2m scheme, which is being funded by the Home Office and Youth Endowment Fund and commissioned by the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit.

The first route began operating in December, with others set to begin shortly, and will run until the end of the school year. In addition, organisers hope the scheme will improve pupil attendance. If successful, it could be rolled out across the country.

West Midlands police and crime commissioner Simon Foster says: “Every pupil has a right to walk safely to and from school, and I hope this initiative will help them do just that. Preventing violence reduces the number of victims, which is what we all want to see.”

The first school route to open was at Erdington Academy in Birmingham, an area where last year police received reports of disorder and violent behaviour. Other routes in the Tudor Grange Park and Chelmsley Wood areas of Solihull have also been commissioned.

Youth workers from the Make A Difference (MAD) project, Sport Birmingham’s open access youth programme, are delivering chaperone services for Erdington Academy. Operations director Tom Mcintosh says: “We believe young people have the right to feel safe, which aligns to the outcomes of the Step Together project and allows us to work together to support young people to feel safe and make positive choices.”

Simon Mallett, head teacher at Erdington, adds: “Violence and intimidating behaviour can, on rare occasions, occur on any walk to and from school, so to actively take steps to prevent that from happening is a really positive step.”

Chaperoning projects originated in the US, where they have successfully reduced violent crime affecting school pupils in Chicago. However, some experts have raised concerns that such schemes could traumatise young people and create “no-go” areas (see below).

‘SCHEME WILL CREATE NO-GO AREAS FOR CHILDREN’

By Steven Walker, child protection consultant

The introduction of chaperones for some schools is a sad commentary on government failings to keep the streets safe and a hasty response to recent gang killings. It is also a distraction from the risks children face.

Children are more at risk in their own homes than out on the streets. The media sensationalise and exaggerate stories about street violence, distorting parents’ perceptions of danger. Social media hysteria then amplifies the distortion, and a generation of children are brought up to fear the outside world.

Yet, on average, one child dies every week at the hands of their parents/carers, while the police recorded 227,530 child abuse offences in the year ending March 2019.

The chaperones have identified “hot spots” of anti-social behaviour, but this will simply create no-go areas for children and increase their anxieties about danger. For some children, these areas will become more fascinating and a desirable place to seek thrills.

Twelve years of cuts to children and youth services have reduced the numbers and quality of after-school safe places to meet in purposeful activities under supervision.

Youth clubs and other organised activities provide respite for poorer parents working full time. Children from these backgrounds have no choices but to linger on the streets, so cutting youth services is discriminatory.

Street killings garner shock headlines, but everyday abuse against children is woven into the fabric of our society.

• Steven Walker is the author of Children Forsaken - Child Abuse from Ancient to Modern Times (2021), Critical Publishing
  
  

‘PROJECT IS A MODEL OF DETACHED YOUTH WORK’

By Jo Fitzsimmons, Birmingham programme manager, Redthread

The Step Together school chaperone project is a model of detached youth work that links the streets, the local school and the community together, offering a strong contextual safeguarding approach to a complex, and often politicised, issue.

Redthread’s Youth Violence Intervention Programme is embedded in three Birmingham hospitals, seeing first-hand the injuries sustained by children and young people on their way to and from school. It is the routine of the school run that can make young people vulnerable to those who know when and where they will be and intend to harm them.

Detached youth workers are a key piece of the public health approach to tackling the violence puzzle that seeks to prevent violence from happening in the first place.

With the cuts to local authority youth work over the past decade, the lack of detached youth work provision has greatly affected the safety of communities and the children in them – where are the “safe” adults that they can talk to?

In Step Together, those safe adults are around after school, running PHSE (personal, social, health and economic) lessons, delivering after school clubs; they are offering a contextual safeguarding model that allows young people to safely walk their own streets in order to remain in education.

Step Together offers young people safety in their neighbourhoods; the right to remain in education; and a strong community response, while highlighting the ongoing reality of life in some locations.