fear and fashion summary

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TheFearand FashionevaluationA summary report


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Why do young people carry knives and howcan they be persuaded to choose alternativepaths during the transition to adulthood?

These questions became a central part o the lawand order debate ollowing the upsurge in kniecrime which aected many parts o the countrybut particularly London in 2007 and 2008.

O course while the issue o what to do aboutknie crime seemed to emerge rom nowhere inthese two years, some organisations had alreadybegun to take action to tackle what they sawas a dangerous and growing social problem.

This summary is taken rom a larger evaluationreport by Clear Plan (UK) Ltd into anti-knie crimeactivity in London rom 2007 to December 2009.

This is available to download romwww.earandashion.org.uk

Tackling kniecrime in London


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An introductiontoFear and Fashion

The City Bridge Trust (ormerly known asthe Bridge House Trust) commissionedresearch into young people and knie crimeback in 2004, long beore the issue becamea major social policy issue.

The research by Lemos&Crane concluded thatthere were two main reasons or young peoplecarrying knives:

Fear of violence from other young people; and

To acquire status amongst their peers for carryingand/or being willing to use a knie.

Five independent grant-making trusts formeda partnership following the release of the Fearand Fashion: The use of knives and otherweapons by young people report. They were:

The City Bridge Trust;

The Esme Fairbairn Foundation;

The John Lyons Charity;

Trust for London (formerly known as CityParochial Foundation); and

The Wates Foundation.

Their intention was to pool fnancial and intellectualresources to develop and und a collaborativeprogramme named Fear and Fashion whichwould devise appropriate practical responsesto the issues raised in the report.

The initial ambition to und local partnershipsto design and deliver holistic approaches totackling knie crime within selected localities

was abandoned as no suitable partnershipscame orward and replaced by discreteproject-based initiatives.

So where did these projects take place and howdid they work?


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Working with young people

Four projects designed to develop and test out

dierent interventions to prevent young people romcarrying and using weapons each received threeyears worth o unding in 2007. The organisationsfunded to deliver exemplar projects under the Fearand Fashion programme were:

Crime Concerns Kickstart project Fear OrFashion (sic) in Southwark and Lambeth;

Rainer (Tackling Knife Crime) in Brent;

Paddington Development Trust hosted Working

With Men (Uncut) in North Westminster; and

Leap Confronting Conict in North Westminster.

Each of the projects tested out a range ofapproaches and activities designed either toprevent young people rom becoming involvedin knie crime, or to address the behaviour oyoung people who were known to alreadybe involved in knie crime in some way.

Three (those led by Crime Concern, the

Paddington Development Trust and LeapConfronting Conict) adopted a preventativeapproach aimed at young people who wereconsidered at risk o becoming involved inknife crime. The fourth project (Rainer) workedonly with individual young people who wereidentifed through the criminal justice systemas already being involved in knie crime.

The range o approaches applied byprojects included:

Awareness raising;

Informal education;

Mediation;

Conict resolution techniques;

Mentoring;

Social action;

Highlighting the interplay of action and

consequence; and

Victim support.

The projects also began to develop workwith parents during the later phase o theirwork. This decision was driven by increasedrecognition o the role played by parents ininuencing young people and challenging oraccepting a culture o knie crime, and becauseo the general lack o provision in this area.


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Evaluating the projects

In January 2008 a team from Glasgow-based

consultants Clear Plan began a two-yearevaluation o the programme which alsoinormed and supported the developmento the our specifc projects.

In addition to evaluation activity with individualprojects, which included reviewing keydocuments, meeting sta, managers, steeringgroups and local partners, engaging withyoung people, and supporting projects tohelp them develop monitoring tools, a number

o key evaluation tasks were identifed:

Field work with staff and other stakeholdersin each o the projects to provide baselineinormation or the interventions providedor planned;

A survey of young people engaged in the projectsto examine their experience o, and attitudestowards, knife crime;

Follow-up eld work with staff and stakeholders

to consider the implications o the baseline reportndings; and

A seminar to understand the opportunities, issuesand challenges identifed by the evaluation.

The release of the Interim Report saw a number

o new priorities identifed or the evaluation o theFear and Fashion projects during 2009. Projectsand the evaluation team were asked to engagewith relevant stakeholders to:

Determine to what extent the benets/impactrom the projects contributions could beattributed to good youth work practice ratherthan specialist knie crime related knowledgeor skills;

Assess how much of a priority knife crime inthe locality actually was. Had it become moreor less important than previously? Was it likelyto become more or less important? What werethe reasons or any changes?

Understand how project stakeholders couldembed community engagement as part o theprogrammes legacy; and

Establish how possible continued Fear andFashion investment could be best used to

address these issues or the uture.

A seminar with funders to consider the impacto the programme and the implications o theevaluation on uture unding was also held beorethe production of a nal report in November/December 2009.


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Leap Conronting Confict

The priority placed by Leap Confronting Conicton evaluating young peoples perceptions allowedthem to amend the nature of the interventions;working in schools is difcult or external agenciesbecause they represent a threat to school practicesand could cause negative publicity; the absence oflongitudinal tracking makes the task o measuringthe long term impact on behaviour very difcultto achieve.

Activities Achievements

A schools programme,intensive groupwork and YouthWork placements

The project workedwith a total of 119young people and15 teachers.

A further 126 young

people and 40 adultsresponded to conictaudits. 54 youngpeople completeda groupwork course,and our had movedinto Youth Workplacements.

Six now deliverworkshops exploring

the consequenceso knie crime

Tools

Conict audits were created in consultationwith schools. More inormation on this canbe ound at www.earandashion.org.uk

Working With Men (who delivered the

Uncut project on behal o PaddingtonDevelopment Trust)

The importance o branding and how interventionsare introduced to partners was highlighted as akey lesson. Working With Men had to re-brandtheir services as community saety rather than kniecrime or conict management; raising the prole ofthe work was important to help harness supportfrom partners. Uncut earned signicant localcredibility through playing a lead role in responding

to a knife-crime related death in the early stagesof the project; methods and approaches weredeveloped in response to what project workerswere learning/hearing rom the young people in thelocality. Young people wanted to see knie crime ina broader context. They wanted better connectionsbetween what they learned from Uncut and whatthey learned in school.

Activities AchievementsThree programmesand additional one-to-one work:

Conictmanagement;

Mock trials; and

Fatal StabbingAssemblies.

Over 1,500 youngpeople aged 11-17participated. Thisincludes whole schoolyears participating inschool assemblies andthose selected to takepart in intensive 4-6week programmes

or one-to-one workwith Uncut staff

Tools

Conict Management Year 6 Pack; ConictManagement Key Stage 3 and 4; Uncut ParentsTraining pack. More inormation on this canbe ound at www.earandashion.org.uk


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Evaluation conclusions

What have we learned rom this evaluation and

how can this knowledge inorm uture evaluations?

The projects have been eective in engagingyoung people in education and awareness-raising activity on knie crime. Participantevaluations report increased knowledge othe consequences o knie crime and lessinclination to be involved in knie crime.

The eect o individual tailored interventions withyoung people already identifed as having engaged

in knie crime is much easier to measure thaninformal education or awareness-raising projects.

The success of the Fear and Fashion projectsis more associated with eective practice withyoung people, or with broader violence reductionand conict resolution agendas, than with specicknife-crime knowledge or skills.

Impressive partnership work with schools andYouth Offending Teams has been developed byFear and Fashion projects.

While Fear and Fashion projects have allestablished credibility with local partners, there hasbeen limited success in transorming this credibilityinto wider sustainable inuence for change outsidethe immediate work o the projects.

There could have been a stronger link betweenlessons learned during the evaluation and howthe projects developed over time.


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Despite unding ceasing in 2010 a number o steps havebeen taken to preserve the legacy o Fear and Fashion.

The website set up to promote knowledge sharing(www.earandashion.org.uk)will continue to provideinormation and tools rom this work and has a particularvalue in highlighting what support exists or parents.

Working with Men (Uncut) have plans to sell a conict

management pack and training on how to use it.Practice tools and materials could be presentedin a dedicated publication or a showcaseopportunity/conerence.

Discrete pockets o activity may be unded toensure that investment to date is ully exploitedto produce greater social beneft.

Training programmes to embed the Uncutmaterials in Youth Oending Teams and schoolsacross London could be commissioned.

Plans to publish and disseminate Circle programmematerials are in development.

AcknowledgementsThis evaluation was undertakenby Bob Forsyth, Colin Duffand Alan Small ofClear Plan (UK) LtdSuite 385111 West George StreetGlasgow G2 1QX

The summary was written by Mike Towerswww.eectivewords.co.uk

Designed by www.luminous.co.uk

Printed on Cocoon Offset which is maderom 100% recycled fbres sourced onlyrom post consumer waste.

www.earandashion.org.uk

Looking to the uture


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fear and fashion summary

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