The VRU wishes to award an allocation of
£12,000 from the VRU Criminal Justice Delivery Group 23/24
budget to fund a contract enabling the scoping, feasibility
assessment, and mobilisation of the ‘Your Choice’
Programme Pilot in Wigan with a view to then implementing in 24/25
and the potential for this to become a GM wide programme offer post
Wigan evaluation.
‘Your Choice’ is a project aimed at reducing youth
violence and helping young people to achieve their goals. The
project works with children between 11 and 18 at risk of contextual
harm, using psychologically informed, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
(CBT) tools and techniques. It aims to empower young people by
taking a public health approach to help break the cycle of violence
and harm. It is currently delivered across 30 of the London
Boroughs and has received funding from the London VRU, Home Office
and Youth Endowment Fund to support implementation since 2021. This
has included the YEF-funded evaluation Pilot Trial of ‘Your
Choice’ from April 2022 to March 2023 (published October
2023). Following this YEF gave the go ahead for full-scale efficacy
trial in May 2023 and this will run until Dec 2024. CBT is
recognised within the YEF toolkit (An overview of existing research
on approaches to preventing serious youth violence) as having a
high impact on preventing violent crime.
The training of Wigan practitioners to deliver the pilot Your
Choice Project in GM would be delivered via a Train the Trainer
model, at local authority level. The identified trainers will have
two days of introductory training, led by the pan-London Your
Choice Programme Practice Lead. The Your Choice LA Trainers will
then be equipped to deliver the four-day training programme to the
youth practitioners who work within Wigan’s safeguarding
adolescent service (which includes youth justice and complex
safeguarding teams) in order to cascade best practice to
practitioners within the system.