Health services and police use school workshop to highlight risks of violence

• For another programme, police and NHS create five-day workshop to highlight the reality of knife crime to young people

• The schemes have been well received and are to be rolled out across the region

ACTION

Violence reduction units (VRUs) across Avon and Somerset are working collaboratively to deliver innovative education schemes to address youth violence. Initiatives such as the Insight programme and the Blunt Truth workshop are helping young people to understand more fully the risks associated with knife crime.

Launched in 2019, having been adopted from a model originally delivered in Liverpool by Merseyside Police, the Insight programme involved a group of 13 young people from Bristol and North Somerset.

They were selected due to their behaviour both inside and outside of school raising concerns some were at risk of involvement in knife crime. It was hoped enrolling them on the intensive five-day programme – which takes young people through the different steps of a crime investigation (see box) – would bring about a positive change in their behaviour and attitude towards carrying a dangerous weapon.

Police constable Kris Withers, a youth engagement officer for Avon & Somerset Police, who accompanied the group throughout the programme, said they were visited a few weeks later to get their feedback on the experience.

“They all thoroughly enjoyed it and said they would not carry a knife,” he says. “Some of them said they now had aspirations to become a police officer which, personally, was really rewarding.

“What bothered us is they said if they knew someone was carrying a knife they wouldn’t report it. It’s because they think, in their words, that ‘snitches get stitches’.”

Withers says such feedback resulted in Avon & Somerset Police and the NHS working together to create the Blunt Truth workshop in an attempt to boost reporting of young people carrying knives. The workshop, which includes a hard-hitting film made by drama students from a Bristol secondary school, was delivered to groups of year 8 and 9 school pupils in Bristol and South Gloucestershire.

The hour-long workshop is expected to be rolled out in the coming months to schools across Avon and Somerset reaching up to 2,000 young people. The team hopes to also visit pupil referral units in the area to engage with those young people not in mainstream education but identified as being at higher risk of involvement in knife crime. Other non-education settings such as youth clubs and boxing clubs are expected to host the workshop in November.

Its main aim is to encourage all young people to report to their school, police or anonymously through Fearless (the youth service of Crimestoppers) if they know or suspect one of their peers is in possession of a knife.

To back up its key message it uses the slogan: “You save two lives when you report a knife before it is used.”

The film’s opening scenes include statistics for 2019/20 that show more than 400 people in England were admitted to hospital with stab wounds. Around 16 per cent of them were young people.

During the short film, the experiences of 15-year-old Alex are followed as she decides not to speak up about her friend who she knows has a knife in a school bag.

An incident results in a teenager being stabbed and taken to hospital and Alex’s friend arrested for committing the crime.

The film delivers an alternative ending scenario if Alex had reported the knife which sees her friend being asked by a teacher to step out from the classroom and has his bag taken away from him.

Elli Campbell, a youth project co-ordinator for Avon & Somerset Police who covers Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset, explains students are asked a series of questions before being shown the film.

“The idea of the questions is not to get answers from the young people,” explains Campbell. “We just want them to think about what they would do if they were in certain situations.”

They have been designed to make young people think about how they would feel if a person they knew used a knife which resulted in someone being stabbed.

Furthermore, how would it affect them if that person that was assaulted came from their family or group of friends, adds Campbell.

Once the film has been shown, students are then asked to consider what they would do if they were any of the characters in the scenario.

Campbell says this encourages further group discussion and helps to reinforce the importance of reporting of knives before they can be used.

The second half of the workshop is handed over to health workers who deliver a session on first aid skills for young people to use if they are caught up in a knife crime emergency.

In a presentation about the project, Dr Rob Walker, an emergency doctor working in Bristol and Bath and NHS lead for the project, seeks to dispel some commonly held myths among young people.

“You hear a lot of the same responses: ‘It won’t happen to me’ or ‘I’ll be fine, maybe a scar’,” he says.

Walker describes how staff spend a lot of time explaining to young people about the medical consequences of a knife injury when they are being seen in emergency departments.

He says: “We explain the risk of injury to the bowel and the potential need for a stoma bag, the risk of permanent nerve damage, paralysis or perhaps the need for a wheelchair.

“We ask them to think how long it might take to recover or be rehabilitated after these types of significant injuries.”

Endorsing the workshop, Judge Mark Horton, a long-standing partner in the collaboration between the NHS and regional VRUs, says it is intended to be a “discussion not a lesson”.

“The course offers something very special,” explains Horton. “It invites the young people to perform an act of genuine personal responsibility for another human being by either helping the injured or having the courage to report information about knives.

“That action, whichever they take, will not only change and save the lives of two people. It will also change their lives whether by halting the physical consequences of a stabbing or by anonymously reporting that someone has a knife and preventing it from occurring.”

IMPACT

The workshop was initially piloted in two schools in Avon and Somerset during the summer term before being launched in other settings from October. At least 12 secondary schools will be involved in the project by next July.

The team will draw on feedback from students and teachers to refine the programme ahead of it being offered to more schools in the area.

A second Insight programme is planned to be delivered in January.

Amelia, who plays Alex in the film, says it will have a bigger impact on teenagers because it depicts young people involved in a highly realistic scenario.

“I do feel more educated on how common knife crime is and that it can happen anytime, with anyone and in any place,” she explains.

“It’s not just the typical people you would expect to commit knife crime. It could be anyone you know.

“The film is going to motivate people to do the right thing when they see something going on and will set an example for them.”

INSIGHT PROGRAMME TACKLES KNIFE CRIME IN FIVE DAYS

• Day one: Held at a police headquarters in Portishead, the group was sworn in as detectives and tasked with investigating a fictitious stabbing. This included a visit to a crime scene within the police grounds at which a crime scene investigator was also present.

• Day two: The group was taken to Southmead Hospital’s A&E department where they watched as an actor role-playing a stab victim was treated by the medical trauma team.

• Day three: Involved the group continuing with their investigation as well as taking part in confidence and team building exercises organised by the Prince’s Trust.

• Day four: The young people spent the day at a mock court room at the University of the West of England with a crown court judge presiding over the fictitious stabbing case.

• Day five: Culminated in a talk from a victim of knife crime explaining to the group how they had nearly lost their life. This was followed by an awards ceremony congratulating the young people for completing the programme.