Good morning and thank you for taking the time to read our VERU in View newsletter. I feel an enormous sense of pride at the various projects and programmes outlined in this month’s edition, which are the culmination of months of hard work by so many of our supremely talented VERU team working alongside our partners.

This week we can only really start in one place, with the news that we have secured funding to enable us to carry on our vital work for at least another 12 months, subject to our proposals being ratified by the Home Office.

This is yet another huge endorsement of our achievements in the VERU. The feedback we have had from national leaders in the serious youth violence space has been consistently positive, and it is great news that we have been backed to continue this for a further year.

You can read the full announcement on our website, but we are so grateful to so many people for their support in getting us to this point. Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner Kathryn Holloway undoubtedly deserves so much of this praise, and she could not have said it better than this quote: “Gang violence and exploitation have continued to fall over the past year in Bedfordshire and the specialist VERU has played a massive part in this.”

Every element of our tight knit VERU team has played their part. The work of our youth intervention specialists Sheldon, Roseann, Draz and Demi, all under the stewardship of Tasha, continues to inspire and humble me every single day. This team is genuinely making a difference to people’s lives across Bedfordshire, helping young and vulnerable people escape exploitation and turn their lives around. A summary of their work over the past year is attached.

I am privileged to work alongside them and I get positive emails praising their work on an almost daily basis. You can find out more about the team and make a referral through our website.

The VERU is much more than just the YIS team, though. Our Exploitation lead Lisa has pulled together the hugely impressive Violence and Exploitation Reduction Strategy for Bedfordshire Action Plan, mapping out the response and actions that every agency in Bedfordshire should deliver to ensure we are tackling these issues in the most effective and consistent way possible.

Our lead analyst Ade is doing similar work in the analytical space by working with different agencies to truly understand the nature of these issues, while our comms lead Jon is coordinating work in this area through the Bedfordshire Against Violence and Exploitation project.

This is all without mentioning the huge support provided by Dee, who has overseen the awarding of grant funding to dozens of community projects this year, as well as Benita, whose design and analytical skills are invaluable to the unit. Each and every one of the team has played their part and I am incredibly proud to head up such a talented group of people.

I was really honoured to be asked to present at a recent Four Nations webinar looking at taking a public health approach in policing, an approach encompassed by our work in the VERU. It has also been great to catch up with so many of our community projects, who are continuing to deliver some fantastic results and alter their delivery methods during lockdown.

As you can see over this newsletter, we are on the cusp of an incredibly busy and productive few weeks for the VERU, with many of our longer term projects coming to fruition. I really hope you all can support us in all this work and continue to give our partners and communities the tools they need to combat violence and exploitation.

Kimberley Lamb

Head of the VERU