The Big Idea

Over two-thirds of 16-24 year olds we surveyed were most concerned about crimes, including mugging, drink spiking and street harassment, but most were not involved in any local safety initiatives. 

While 84% of those young people say they would act on crime prevention information if given it, the majority do not know where to access this information or how to get involved to make a difference in their local community. 64% of young people also said they feel the Cost of Living crisis will increase crime in their area over the next 12 months, so we know we need to act quickly.

We need to raise £30,000 so we can support them to make the changes they want to see to tackle crime and improve their communities. Young people are hugely affected by crime, and they deserve to be included in safety initiatives, and given the tools needed to make their voices heard when it comes to crime prevention and community resilience.

The Background

Over the past 18 months, our wonderful Young Peoples Engagement & Development Manager, Simeon, has been researching the foundation of how Neighbourhood Watch can better include and represent those aged 16-24 within our work, and to ensure their voices, experiences, and skills are appreciated and amplified within their local communities.

We all know that young people are the future leaders of our communities, and it is vital that we ensure they are part of the conversations and decision-making around crime prevention, safety, and community resilience. 

We always want to make sure that any work we do is fully informed and shaped by young people, so we surveyed over 2,500 young people from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences, and we ran focus groups with almost 300 young people, to find out: their top crime and safety concerns; how much they feel they are (and they would like to be) valued and included within their local communities; and what they might do differently to solve local issues. Simeon has also run 3 pilot task and action groups with 30 college and 12 university students, to help work through solutions to crime prevention or community resilience issues (examples below).

We now have a wealth of feedback and input from 16-24 year olds, as well as tried-and-tested models for co-developing and co-delivering great crime prevention and community-building projects with young people. We are so excited about this next stage of the work - but we need to fund it!!

Why Now? 

Our Trustee Board is so committed to this work they agreed to fund the research and consultation stage of this project from our reserves, to ensure we were building a strong case for support. We now know with certainty and evidence that this work is needed, being called for, and not being offered by other services.

We have reached the end of the amount we can fund from reserves and now urgently need to raise funds to guarantee we can continue and build on all the amazing work that has already been done.

So we are asking you - our wonderful community - to help us fund this project to keep it flying and growing. To help us engage and lift up the next generation of Neighbourhood Watch volunteers. To make sure that young people's concerns around crime, safety, community connection, and proactive citizenship are listened to and acted upon by decision-makers. 

What young people say

"Taking an active part in community activities gives us young people a better understanding of the reality of the community" - survey respondent

"Please involve more young people" - survey respondent

"Everyone should be involved, no matter what their age" - survey respondent

"I think it would be good to give young people a say on what happens in the community as it affects us too" - survey respondent

What difference will this project make?

• Improve young people's life and leadership skills through co-led and co-developed projects
• Build resilient connected communities by bringing those from different backgrounds and experiences together to focus on problem-solving and positive community action
• Improve young people's mental well-being and resilience by focusing on the crime, safety and community issues that matter to them, and supporting them to amplify their voices with decision-makers
• Improve young people's employability and ready-for-work skills through team-working projects with peers, other community members and decision-makers
• Reduce crime by increasing crime prevention knowledge and action across sectors of society that it doesn't often reach or resonate with
• Strengthen communities by seeking additional input and skillsets from those who may not otherwise by represented or included, bringing further richness and diversity to our work
• Upskilling Neighbourhood Watch volunteers to work with and involve young people in their local groups, increasing sustainability and future-proofing the organisation

What will we do with the funds?

Our initial target of £30,000 will help us to employ a Young People's Community Lead on a part-time basis to oversee all our work with 16-24 year olds, and build on the foundations Simeon has laid. As part of their role they will:

• Set up 3 x Task & Action groups: to run in local areas for up to 12 young people in each group to problem-solve on particular issues in their area. The groups run for 6 weeks and include guest speakers where appropriate. 
• Examples include: an anti-drink spiking campaign; making the local area more hostile to harassment; designing an anti-hate crime training programme for students, a campus campaign to encourage students to take steps to prevent burglary or theft, etc.
  
• Set up a Neighbourhood Watch national Youth Forum: to meet bi-monthly online, with 2 meeting per year in person. This will be co-led by young people for them to discuss and work together on national crime and community issues, including ways young people could be better incorporated into the Neighbourhood Watch structure. This will eventually feed into a Youth Board, which will feed into our Trustee Board
• Recruit and manage Young Consultants: this is a voluntary role that supports young people with gaining practical real-world work skills while they feed into Neighbourhood Watch Network's strategic and material work. Young Consultants ensure our resources, materials, policies and strategic direction are representing and accessible to young people as well as others
• Oversee the production and distribution of The Lookout: our magazine written, edited and illustrated by students, for students

What we have done so far

Survey

We ran a survey that had 2,565 respondents aged 16-24. We asked questions around crime and safety concerns, how involved with their local community they are and how valued and listened to they felt by local decision-makers. We asked about their barriers to getting involved and what would make them more inclined to do so.

Some findings from the survey that have helped shape our project and ensure it's fully informed by the real experiences of young people:

• 84% of young people said they would act on crime prevention advice if it was given to them
• We asked, "What do you think stops you from getting involved in decision-making in your local community?" - 47% said they wouldn't know where to start or that they hadn't been asked
• One respondent said: "I wouldn't even know where to start to gain access to help making decisions within my local community and providing my experiences and possible ways to change the way our community lives with and sees its young peers."
• We asked, "How do you think you could be better represented in decision-making in your local community?" - 57% said with more accessible information about local opportunities, such as volunteering, the work and opportunities with Neighbourhood Watch, tenants groups, etc.
• 41% said they would be keen to be part of an action group to solve local issues, while 33% said joining Neighbourhood Watch would be of interest to young people
• 64% said they felt that the Cost of Living crisis will increase crime in their area

Focus groups

We held 9 focus groups with over 300 young people both online and in-person to find out more about their crime and safety concerns, how they would like to be involved in their communities, their experiences and representation within their local communities and society, and their ideas for improving crime prevention, community building and citizenship. Simeon shared active bystander principles with the participants and got a greater understanding on the barriers to their involvement in community action and safety initiatives. We learned that the biggest barriers were that they didn't know where to start or hadn't been asked to be involved. We want to change that!

Task & Action group pilots

We have run 3 Action groups with 42 young people at colleges and universities. These have included: 

• Mansfield - young people collected donations of woolly hats, gloves, phone credits, and female sanitary packs to make up winter care boxes for the homeless
• Nottingham - young people developed and launched an information and advice campaign on social media about preventing violence against women and girls
• Rainham, Kent - young people in 6th form worked on a project to promote positive mental health and managing stress for those taking their 11+ exams 

We have also organised guest speakers for these groups, including Police and Crime Commissioners, local policing teams, and councillors, to hear the young people's thoughts and concerns, and to answer questions.

Share The Love Further

Our social channel links are at the top and bottom of this page, but if you can also share with your networks on LinkedIn and Whatsapp we'd be so grateful!

Share on LinkedIn, link - https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/youngpeople-nwn

Share on WhatsApp, link - https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/youngpeople-nwn

If you reached this far, thank you so much!

Contact us: [email protected]

Find out more: visit our website

Neighbourhood Watch Network is a charity registered in England & Wales, CIO no: 1173349.