The Community Fire Safety Strategy will be available for download via this blog.
“The Community Fire Safety Strategy is integral to our corporate planning
process. It provides a high level view of our approach and ambitions in
the area of community safety and is underpinned with a series of
individual strategies – arson, youth, violence at work, etc – that deal with
specific themes. This strategy is reflected in the Authority’s Integrated
Risk Management Plan, annual Service Plan and Financial Plan that
incorporate the individual targets and milestones for specific
actions and projects.”
Coming Soon.
Published by Katie Lips May 28th, 2007
in Social Inclusion and Links.
As we’re researching a range of services that are of relevance to the Youth Engagement community, we’ll be linking to them via this blog, in the hope that you find our research useful. We have recently been looking at national government initiatives in neighborhood policing, and community engagement.
Respect
http://www.respect.gov.uk/
The Government’s new Respect Initiative including “Youth Specific” information for communities and community workers. “Respect is about central government, local agencies, local communities and ultimately every citizen working together to build a society in which we can respect one another - where anti-social behaviour is rare and tackled effectively, and communities can live in peace together.”
Neighbourhood Policing
http://www.neighbourhoodpolicing.co.uk/
“Neighbourhood Policing is based on local priorities identified by local people as the issues that need to be dealt with in their area and Police and partners will work together to tackle them.”
Neighbourhood Renewal Unit
http://www.neighbourhood.gov.uk
“The Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (NRU) is responsible for overseeing the Government’s comprehensive neighbourhood renewal strategy. A strategy that responds to local circumstances rather than directs everything from Whitehall.”
Youth Justice Board
http://www.youth-justice-board.gov.uk/
“The Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB) is an executive non-departmental public body. Our 12 board members are appointed by the Secretary of State for Justice. The YJB oversees the youth justice system in England and Wales. We work to prevent offending and reoffending by children and young people under the age of 18, and to ensure that custody for them is safe, secure, and addresses the causes of their offending behaviour.”
Safer School Partnership
http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/ssp/
“Safer School Partnerships, where police are based in schools, take a joined-up approach to crime prevention, school safety, behaviour improvement and educational achievement.”
If you have more links you’d like us to include please let us know.
I recently started working with The Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service to develop ideas for using Emerging Technologies in Youth Engagement projects. One outcome of that is this blog; a new initiative designed to build a community of practice for people working with youth engagement and new technologies. Another outcome of my work with the Fire Service is that I have been privileged to experience excellent Youth Engagement programmes in action. The Fire service has a best in class training centre based in Bootle, Liverpool, which sees many young people embark upon, and successfully complete a range of training courses. Recently I met with a group of 13-14 year olds on their one day a week course. The highlight of my day was a trip to the ‘Ratrun’ a series of cages used to train Fire Fighters in working in confined spaces. The ratrun goes down a treat with all course participants, and I must say trying on Fire Fighter uniforms went down quite well too!
As we continue with our Emerging Technology projects we will be using the best in online software to share our work with our readers. We’re using Flickr.com to share our photos. For anyone not already familiar with the delights of Flickr, Flickr is a (free) online Photo Sharing Community. You can use it to store and archive your photos and to share them with your friends, colleagues and community. I have used Flickr for personal projects for ages and I love it. It’s also a great way to find people interested in the same things (work or fun) as you are. We will be sharing images from the Youth Engagement projects we’re working on via Flickr. A small selection of work so far is already there at our Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouropenspace/
Commissioned by the UK Home Office, the Positive Futures Case Study Research Project focused on Positive Futures, a national sports based social inclusion programme.
“Positive Futures is a national sports based social inclusion programme aimed at marginalized 10-19 year olds in the most deprived neighbourhoods. Managed within the Home Office Drug Strategy Directorate and delivered locally by a range of agencies, including local authorities, charities, sports clubs and crime reduction agencies.”
The research is a great starting point for anyone wanting to find out more about sports and Social Inclusion.
Published by Katie Lips May 23rd, 2007
in Youth Engagement and Publications.
Recently I have been using the National Youth Agency’s website to research some background into Government Policy in the area of Youth Engagement. The site is a really good place to start with links to a range of useful information.
Published by Katie Lips May 21st, 2007
in Social Media.
TALK is the very new “social computing system for Local Government”.
“It’s here to support your projects, communities of interest and working groups by providing spaces where you can collaborate on wiki pages, write a blog or learn more about initiatives that are happening across the sector. TALK is about the people who make the sector work. It’s about bridging the knowledge gap between authorities and projects and it’s about learning more about your colleagues.”
TALK is a mix of articles, discussions and resources; and certainly seems to be an interesting initiative. Whilst the service is very new, as more and more local government thinkers participate, it seems set to grow into a valuable resource.
We have been working to develop ideas for using mobile communications, particularly SMS in youth engagement. One key issue faced by the Fire Service was keeping up continued communication with the young people who participate in a variety of courses, after the courses have ended and they have moved onto other things. The Fire Service is in a position to offer followup courses, or potentially work experience and offers more general support to the young people they have got to know well. Can SMS be used to maintain contact? Will it work better than writing letters or sending emails?
We have implemented and embarked upon a new project recently to answer these questions. We’re using a simple online SMS sending tool to send SMS to groups. Following an initial training period with staff, we’ll be trialling this system and sending regular SMS communications to people on the courses as they start their journey with the Fire Service. We will be publishing our findings and learnings here.
Published by Katie Lips May 13th, 2007
in Youth Engagement and Projects.
The Connect Youth website is a great place to start researching European projects; Connect Youth is the UK national agency for the Youth in Action Programme.
“Along with the European Commission, our aim is to help young people discover Europe. On our site you will find information about Youth Exchanges and Youth Initiatives; European Voluntary Service, Youth in the World and Youth Support Systems.”
As well as information on all the various Connect Youth programmes, there is a useful database you can use to search for potential project partners.
(Image: http://www.connectyouthinternational.com/)
I first heard about Katie Lips and Kisky Netmedia at a Merseyside Managers ICT User Group which took place in the Holly Oaks student bar at the Lime Pictures studios in
Liverpool November 2006. At the time I was keen to set up a project involving ICT and Youth Engagement. My thinking at the time was based on trying to understand how my own children used the internet whilst at school and at home. Further I attended a concert with my kids where only 500 people turned up in the audience instead of the 900 expected. It transpired that the event was not advertised on the net. The organisers did not use the technology available to engage with the youth and look what happened.
I invited Katie to a meeting at Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service HQ and we were joined by MF&RS Youth Engagement Manger Emma Dodd. The subject was to discuss the possibility of working together on a Youth Engagement project using dynamic technical innovation as the channel of engagement and in that meeting the ‘OurOpenSpace’ project was conceived.
