Hello my name is Emm.
I am delighted to be writing this blog and would like to focus on a subject that I am very passionate about and is connected to all areas of my work - reducing serious violence, adversity and trauma across West Yorkshire; embedding a public health approach.
The direct and indirect impacts of adversity, trauma and serious violence come at huge costs, not only to the services responding, but more significantly to the lives of people living in West Yorkshire. The impacts of violence in West Yorkshire are seismic in their scale. Beyond the physical and mental trauma felt by victims, the costs associated with violence are staggering. In West Yorkshire we estimate this to be more than £874 million pounds per year. This figure does not take into account costs borne due to late intervention, the loss of potential of many young people and the incalculable impacts of fear of violence in the communities of West Yorkshire.
Impact of serious violence, trauma and adversity
Knife crime, crimes of violence against the person and gun crime have all been identified as a serious issue across out area. Operation Jemlock, the bespoke response to serious violent crime, has seen over 5,100 arrests with 4,730 stop and searches being made. Over 600 offensive weapons have also been seized. 42% of knife crime offenders are males aged between 15 and 24. 94% of gun crime offenders and 99% of victims are male, with those aged 20-24 the most common offenders. Most knife and gun crime offences takes place in some of our poorest communities (source: WY VRU Needs Assessment January 2021).
76,000 incidents of domestic abuse were recorded in the most recent monitoring period. Females account for 75% of victims and two-thirds of victims are aged 20-39. Perpetrators are mainly male (75%), with two-thirds being aged 21-40 years. (source: WY VRU Needs Assessment January 2021)
Evidence shows that violence with injury offences occur more regularly in ours town and city wards, with peaks in offending from 11pm to midnight, suggesting a link with increased footfall around the night time economy. An additional peak can be seen at around 3pm, potentially linked to after school activities. 75% of victims and offenders are male. 100% of homicide offenders in West Yorkshire were aged between 15 and 24 years. (source: WY VRU Needs Assessment January 2021)
In October 2019 the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) and our Improving Population Health Programme entered into a partnership. As an area of work I am passionate about I became part of the VRU Team, as the public health lead for one day a week. West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit, Director, Chief Superintendent Jackie Marsh describes the work as taking: ‘a unique approach to responding to serious violent crime in West Yorkshire, which is primarily public health led, with a partnership emphasis’
Our partnership has grown from strength to strength, with the original aim (which still remains) to embed a population health approach to reducing serious violence across the West Yorkshire health and care system. Focused on improving health and wellbeing outcomes and reducing inequalities related to rising adversity, trauma and serious violence across our area. What we all have in common is a shared commitment to improving the lives of the population involved in serious violence and ensuring safe and healthy communities across West Yorkshire.
Over the past year we have made great progress, including:
- Putting in place system leadership and governance
- Strengthening system connectivity
- System knowledge, data and Intelligence
- Joint working across all the Partnership’s Programmes
Working with our children, young people and families programme is critical to any approach we take to reduce adversity, trauma and serious violence across the system. Through our joint programmes of work we are working to ensure that West Yorkshire and Harrogate is a trauma informed and responsive system, which includes:
- Developing a shared understanding with all stakeholders and our communities of adversity and traumatic events, particularly in childhood and the impact they have on life expectancy and opportunities.
- A coordinated, cross-system strategy that has aligned policies, practices, and services for supporting and building protective factors.
- Strategic leadership and champions embedded across the system
- Empowering and promoting awareness with and for communities
In order to reduce trauma, adversity and build resilience for people living across West Yorkshire and Harrogate, in particular people who are vulnerable, facing multiple difficulties, complex needs, adversity and childhood trauma we are taking an intergenerational and life course approach, starting from preconception right through and including adulthood. We are set to launch our Adversity, Trauma and Resilience Knowledge Exchange in partnership with West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit from Monday 22 to Wednesday 24 March 2021 in a unique three day online event. You can register here.
Addressing the root causes of serious violence and exploitation of young people in West Yorkshire: an interim report (CREST interim report 2020)
Crest Advisory have been commissioned by the Partnership and the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit to undertake some insight work for us (look out for their March blog on youth engagement undertaken as part of the project and the full insight report by the end of April). The evidence highlights that young people who grow up in poorer areas are more likely to experience childhood adversity and trauma, which are in turn linked to violence and exploitation. Evidence suggests a rise in child poverty is exacerbating a range of health inequalities, including mental ill-health and experience of abuse in childhood, which are more common among young people who commit violent offences and seem to be linked to both violence perpetration and victimisation.
Nationally and in West Yorkshire, both permanent and fixed-term school exclusions have risen since 2012/13. While permanent exclusions in West Yorkshire have remained below the national average, fixed-term exclusions are significantly higher.
COVID-19 has threatened the employment status of many young people.
A public health approach
A public health approach to violence recognises that violence is a preventable problem requiring a societal response. Our approach requires specialist skills to embed a process of reviewing the evidence, understanding and addressing the ‘causes of the causes’ to reduce inequality and improve the determinants of health that impact significantly on the health, wellbeing and safety of our population.
Public health moves away from a blame culture of placing responsibility on individuals to act and change, to one that focuses on communities and a population health; recognising and understanding the impact of and interactions between systems and communities - particularly for people who are experiencing complex multiple disadvantage. It is these interactions that impound inequality, poverty and determine the social, educational and environmental factors that impact on the health and wellbeing of people.
Evidence led
‘Action without intelligence is a form of insanity, but intelligence without action is the greatest form of stupidity in the world’. Charles Kettering
In order to respond and reduce serious violence we have to be evidence led and start with understanding what we are trying to achieve, what difference we want to make and for whom and the evidence that supports this. We must address the ‘causes of the causes’, look beyond the presenting issue, consulting insight, research and existing evidence that seeks to explain why people behave the way they do, what contributes to this behaviour in order to identify the burden on the population, including inequalities. The direct and indirect impact of the ongoing global pandemic has had and will continue to have significant impact on the root causes of serious violence. Underpinning the approach we are taking we aim to ensure that understanding and responding to the root causes of serious violence is everyone business across West Yorkshire.
Focus on prevention
Our approach requires a focus on primary prevention by reducing risk factors and promoting protective factors - we believe that ‘prevention is better than a cure’ - that early intervention to build resilience, reduce the impact of adversity, trauma and change community norms through evidence based interventions, education and policy change.
System leadership and change
In order to help people earlier and prevent significant increase and harm to the population of West Yorkshire we have to work together as a system. Not constrained by our traditional boundaries but embracing the different opportunities each sector and organisation has to help build key protective factors with and for our communities, improving physical, mental health and wellbeing, addressing disengagement form education and creating employment opportunities for young people, particularly for our most vulnerable populations.
Opportunities to get involved
There are a number of ways you can get involved in our Partnership work via the workstreams and groups below:
- Public Health Reducing Serious Violence Network
- Working towards a safe, healthy and thriving night time
- Making West Yorkshire a trauma informed and responsive system
- Addressing inequalities associated with serious violence
- Research
‘By better understanding the motivating factors and triggers, which stem from childhood adversity or trauma, we can identify the best ways of providing support across a number of agencies.
This is what makes the knowledge exchange so important, as it means we can all bring our expertise to the table, recognising how we can co-ordinate and maximise the effectiveness of our interventions’. - Chief Superintendent Jackie Marsh
Have a safe weekend,
Emm
A workshop is currently being planned to support the development of local networks between primary care and voluntary community and social enterprises (VCSEs) in order to improve access and signposting to services and health and wellbeing support for people from BAME communities who are/have been affected by cancer.
NHS Blood Transfusion are currently looking at how the antibodies from blood plasma could support high risk groups such as the elderly and people with cancer who could struggle to develop their own immune response to the virus. Donations are vital to this ongoing lifesaving research, which gives us a better understanding of how we can best treat patients with COVID-19 and help prevent deaths in the future.