Youth Intervention Specialists
The YIS (Youth Intervention Team), part of the VERU specialise in youth interventions. The team comes with a wealth of both lived and professional experiences, ready to support and work with victims, witnesses and those involved in criminal activities – to include our specialist area around gang associations.
Our aim is to encourage the reduction of Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) and violent activities impacting our Bedfordshire community. We provide a supportive service for educators, children, young people and their families – some of whom may be currently disengaged with services.
The Service Offered Includes
- 1-2-1 Support
- Specialist Counsellor to VERU & Therapeutic Service
- Group Advisory Sessions
- Education, Awareness & Career Support
- Support for School Inclusion Units & Alternative Provisions
- County Lines Awareness
- Gang Intervention Education
- Personal Safety Planning
- Family Support
- Multi-agency Support & Signposting
- Mediation & Community Resolution
- Multi-media Resources & Tutorials
- Workshops & School Assemblies
For more information about or to speak to someone about a referral please email veru@bedfordshire.pnn.police.uk
Please note referrals made to the VERU is not a substitute for normal safeguarding referrals and should not be used as such
STRATEGIES
Everything we do at the VERU is underpinned by analysis and data. Our team has led the development of both the Bedfordshire Violence and Exploitation Rapid Strategic Needs Assessment, to better understand these issues in the county, as well as the Violence and Exploitation Reduction Strategic Response.
You can request to download the strategic response from this link, while summaries of the strategic needs assessment are available to download by clicking on the images below.
PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACH
Violence and exploitation are key public health issues across Bedfordshire (Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire, Luton Borough), influencing the health and wellbeing of our population and leading to significant health inequalities.
Violence and exploitation can have an impact right across the life course, with potentially devastating consequences.
Whilst many people survive their experience of violence and/or exploitation, the impact that it has on their physical and mental health and wellbeing can be long lasting and severe.
We believe that violence and exploitation are preventable and our aim is to stop them before they start and to improve the health and wellbeing of our population. To achieve this we need to take a whole-system multi-agency approach.
We need to continue to work together, across multiple agencies and organisational boundaries, to identify and address the root causes and drivers, and promote factors that protect individuals from becoming involved in violence and exploitation in the first place.
We also need to be able to identify those people who are at risk of committing violent crimes, or being a victim of violence and/or exploitation, at an early stage and intervene early.
GOVERNANCE
GOVERNANCE
The governance of the VERU and its strategy sits with the Bedfordshire Violence and Exploitation Reduction
Oversight Board and the Bedfordshire Child Sexual Exploitation and Missing Strategic group. In addition, the three
Directors of Children’s Services will report to their respective Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB) on this
strategy and its implementation. The LSCBs will hold partners to account for their role in delivering this strategy and
associated action plan. Commitment to, and engagement from, partners and stakeholders will be supported and
driven through wider partnership boards.
The governance of the VERU and its strategy sits with the Bedfordshire Violence and Exploitation Reduction Oversight Board and the Bedfordshire Child Sexual Exploitation and Missing Strategic group.
In addition, the three Directors of Children’s Services will report to their respective Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB) on this strategy and its implementation. The LSCBs will hold partners to account for their role in delivering this strategy andassociated action plan.
Commitment to, and engagement from, partners and stakeholders will be supported and driven through wider partnership boards.
FREE YOUTH SERVICES
Contact us for more information about our services or to speak to a member of our team about a concern.
