Supporting young people to talk about violence for Thames Valley Violence Reduction Partnership
For young people across the country, the fear of knife crime is very real, and headlines can make for sobering reading. In the heat of the moment the wrong decisions can be made, and traditional campaigning is failing to land.
In 2022 Claremont was commissioned by the Thames Valley Violence Prevention Partnership to explore attitudes towards, and experiences of, violence, and develop a communications and intervention strategy to encourage positive upstream behaviour in young people across the region.
We worked with 50 young people and 25 of their trusted adults – youth workers, teachers and community leaders, as well as other key stakeholders – to understand their world and identify the right time and place to intervene. We learned that the fear of violence is real, that young people want and need to make their own decisions, and that they already know that staying calm is the key to prevention. Ultimately, our task wasn’t to lecture young people, but instead support them to believe in themselves and follow their own moral compass – to help them ‘Stay True to You’.
We learned that the true goal of the programme should be to drive dialogue between adults and young people, and to provide space to open up about fears and develop positive behaviours. All of our young people told us to “be more youth worker”, so we focused on upskilling and supporting our most important resource – the trusted adults already working with young people. To do this, we created a suite of free, practical materials including workshop guides and flashcards that supported group workshops and 121 conversations in existing youth cubs, classes and community settings, to help young people develop resilience and coping strategies.
All of these materials were framed in our TRUE philosophy – TALK, RECOGNISE REALITY, UNDERSTAND and EMPOWER – and then housed on staytruetoyou.co.uk, which was launched during the National Police Chiefs Council’s Knife Crime Week 2024. This online hub for young people, parents and practitioners also signposted to key organisations and sources of support across the region, as well as hosting a communications toolkit and supporting assets to raise awareness of the approach.
To drive awareness of Stay True to You, we developed an animation, voiced by a young person from the Thames Valley, that articulated the key insights and provided a positive take on the solution. We also provided posters and social media assets to reiterate key learnings .In keeping with what we’d learned, our visual approach was bold and colourful, keeping the tone positive, and using photography from real youth groups across the region.
We were also glad to partner with the Ben Kinsella Trust, and our approach and resources will now be taken forward by them, running training sessions for parents and practitioners to upskill them in the Stay True to You approach.
Claremont delivered us a research-led evidence base from which to work; informing the approach to be the most effective. But it also gave confidence to local partners, providing a credible and locally relevant foundation that all could support.
The products that then followed were impactful, responded to the needs and opportunities we identified to reach our key audiences and have proved popular right across our diverse partnership. We have seen a steady and continued growth in engagement with the programme, with parents, professionals reporting an increased confidence in their abilities to support young people.
– Tim Wiseman, Senior Communications Manager at Thames Valley Violence Reduction Unit
Stay To You explained in an animation produced by our friends at Morever