#Chances4Children: Met Police to use charity app to tackle youth knife crime
Fiona Simpson
Monday, November 30, 2020
The Metropolitan Police has joined forces with youth work charity London Village Network to help fight violent crime in the capital.
London Village Network (LVN) offers young people, at risk of involvement in violent crime, support through one-to-one mentoring programmes and signposting to opportunities through its online app.
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The organisation supports the inclusion and equality of vulnerable young people, including prison leavers, care leavers and those from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, typically at risk of exclusion from school or becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training).
LVN’s app is set to be used by Met Police officers to encourage positive engagement with young people aged 14 to 24.
The app’s signposting and youth mapping function that helps young people see support available in their area including job and apprenticeship opportunities, local events and other youth services.
It is designed so that young people can swipe through the 1,400 opportunities in the capital.
The Met Police will now pilot using the function to signpost young people to opportunities and encourage organisations to sign up after it was redeveloped using enhanced data privacy advice from law firm Hogan Lovells, LVN said.
The firm has also used the app to offer opportunities in its diversity and inclusion team and its graduate scheme on the app.
Chief Inspector Jack Rowlands said: “It is really positive to see an application that not only offers opportunities for young people, but for organisations too, to showcase what they can do to help.
“The Metropolitan Police Service will be able to signpost young people to use the application and access opportunities. In addition, we can share the LVN app with organisations that we work with to enable them to sign up and highlight what they do. Using an accessible and effective digital platform, we hope that we are able to provide more opportunities to young people and help to keep them safe from violence and harm.”
