Issue details

Improved, meaningful and consistent engagement between children and young people and the police is one of the key outcomes of the GMP Child Centred Policing strategy and the GM Youth Justice Transformation Delivery Board. To help achieve this, we recently held a workshop event in Oldham, involving youth service representatives and GMP colleagues from across GM on June 14th, 2024.

We set up this workshop with the aim of bringing together GM partners from youth service agencies and each GMP district to share best practice in developing truly child centred police scrutiny panels across each of the ten GM areas.

The four key principles of the Young Person Scrutiny Panel are:
1. Young person led
2. Facilitated by youth service agencies.
3. GMP involvement and investment.
4. Follows the Lundy Model of Participation.
Following the event, we have now provided an exemplar Terms of Reference; guiding scope and principles, and general FAQ, to assist youth sector partners in establishing their own forums. There will be a follow up workshop event, to be held in November to “check in” and discuss progress/challenges etc and to continue to provide support.

Providing each GM area with £1000 will help go towards the maintenance costs of each forum: transport, refreshments, resources etc. To ensure that the children and young people are never out of pocket for attending and are provided with appropriate food/drinks.

A key aim of the panels, as well as to help improve the relationships and understanding between CYP and the police, is to gather CYP’s views about certain issues and common themes around policing and community safety.

This feedback will be collected and collated by the youth sector partners and shared with colleagues from GMCA/VRU/GMP and GM partners. The hope is that this will help inform policy, practice and the forums can be used as a vehicle for children and young people’s voices, that will be captured in an ongoing capacity.

The ten heads of GM youth services have been sent emails outlining the expectations around this additional funding and a further communication will go out prior to the follow up workshop event in November 24, outlining the following;

Confirming that a CCP Youth Voice forum is established in the specific GM local authori9ty area.
That the funding is used to facilitated and maintain the forums
The timescale for setting up is by March 2025
That feedback and data is collected and collated to inform local CCP practice and to support potential further funding opportunities (YEF, etc)