Shifting to a public health approach to tackling serious youth violence

This chapter explores the recent developments in how young people at risk of exposure to serious youth violence are supported. Initially, the chapter takes a broad view, exploring how a public health approach has increased local and regional governments’ focus on some of the underlying causes of youth violence. Next, this discussion will consider how, after the Taylor Review (2016), the youth justice sector has moved to a child first approach, focusing on the young person’s welfare and developmental needs rather than the offence committed. From here, the chapter outlines how an awareness of contextual safeguarding has shifted the conversation about professionals’ statutory safeguarding duties from the home to extra familial harm such as serious youth violence and county lines. The text will then consider whether any of these developments have made a difference on the estate. This will include analysing the interactions between commissioned services and young people. Finally, the chapter will explore how activities run by local people such as Dorothy, Miche and Lenny have adapted to address the needs of young people, including an increased focus on trauma within the football project and Miche carrying on Dorothy’s legacy.

Public health approach

Maybe the best place to start when considering a public health approach to addressing youth violence in the UK is the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit (SVRU). What began as an initiative of Strathclyde police in 2005 was adopted as a national approach in 2006. The SVRU work focuses on five key areas: Primary Prevention, Secondary Prevention, Tertiary Prevention, Enforcement and Criminal Justice and Attitudinal Change (Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, 2020).

Rather than being enforcement led, a public health approach seeks to address the underlying causes of street violence, such as ACEs, child–parent relationships, educational disengagement and unemployment. The SVRU has sought to tackle some immediate concerns by emphasizing securing jobs for young people, especially those with criminal convictions. It also looks to the long term and includes working with families to ensure children develop a secure attachment with their parents, which helps mitigate the impacts of exposure to community violence (Houston and Grych, 2016), and decreases violence in teenagers (Bigras et al, 2011).