Plans for Year Ahead

The SVRU and YouthLink social media campaign (the first of its kind in the world) will be launched in Aug 2024 and supported by lesson plans and materials from teachers and parents.

Take a ‘whole school approach’ and use the public health approach to learning, to reduce violence in schools by working in two or three different parts of Scotland – we have initiated work in two Lothian Schools and a Fife school for the year ahead.

Expand the delivery of the ‘Think Equal’ programme within the initial local authority test site, and in two other local authorities, ensuring that the psycho-social early years learning package is available for more of our youngest children to benefit from.

Improving the training and knowledge of campus officers to help improve the quality of interventions and support for young people in schools. The Campus Officer Community of Practice will continue to be convened with tailored learning opportunities, including exploring a ‘train the trainer’ for the social media project.

Deliver two stop and search animations co-produced by children and young people, to build awareness and relationships between Police Scotland and young people.

Expanding place-based projects to areas of need: we will set up new place-based projects, one in the Lothians and another in the Tayside area, looking to bring partners together to address the root causes of violence in those specific communities.

Reduce violence in the night-time economy by continuing to support bystander training, partnering with charities who support New Scot communities and build our Resources Page on our website to incorporate the latest evidence of what works.

We will work with partners to test new diversionary activities looking to leverage sport in known hotspot areas, ensuring that the people who would benefit most from these activities have access to them.

We will provide support to communities who have been affected by serious acts of violence, ensuring the likelihood of retribution is reduced and that we promote community healing. We are currently working in two areas affected by homicides.

We will continue to fund the Community Navigators in the west of Scotland, with a new focus on the alcohol, drug and children & young people courts.

We will work with charities who engage with those who are repeat victims of violence to map ‘cold spots’ of activity and develop new approaches to support these people.

We will continue to support the roll out of Violence Anonymous in other parts of Scotland – this is the first in-person community focused on violence reduction in the world.

Having partnered with them to secure external funding, we will continue to partner with a local authority in the west of Scotland as their Care Navigators support at-risk care experienced young people with navigating the many challenges that this group face.

The SVRU will establish a lived experience advisory board to guide the future direction and activity of the SVRU. By putting those who are most affected by the issues and ensuring that they are properly recognised, supported and paid for their time, effort and expertise.

Over 24/25 the SVRU will convene agencies and services from across the violence prevention arena. This will result in a clear shared agenda, opportunities to share learning and build a pathway to address violence by true collaboration.

Data - By working with the Edinburgh Futures Institute, partners in Public Health Scotland and Police Scotland, the SVRU are able to shape how the data is collected and disseminated across Scotland to improve both the surveillance of violence (and its drivers) and the understanding of effectiveness of interventions to ensure that prevention activity is more effective.

The SVRU will deliver on the business plan, with the key points outlined above. Police Scotland colleagues have suggested that they would like to consider a move of our offices into another location in this financial year, so SVRU colleagues continue to engage in this with union and JNCC involvement. This will have an impact on the ability to deliver on the SVRU business plan and as of August 2024, a counter proposal has been lodged.