NORWOOD (Pilot) COMMUNITY SAFETY PARTNERSHIP

The Norwood Community Safety Partnership was launched in 2018 as a pilot, in the southern part of Lambeth, to assist the planned Home Office review of the frameworks and processes created under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.  Progress, delayed by the impact of Covid, began to gather pace after the re-organisation of the Metropolitan Police as part of the follow up to A New Met for London with under way to relaunch both the Safer Neighbourhood Board and a Neighbourhood Watch Association for Lambeth. Then “Making Lambeth one of the safer boroughs in London” was announced as priority number 2 in Lambeth 2030 Our Future, Our Lambeth.

The time was therefore felt to be ripe to go public on the plans to create and test a generic model for a local “community safety partnership” building based on guidance for, and practical experience with and Safer Neighbourhood Panels, Neighbourhood Watch Groups, Patient Engagement Groups,  Community Clusters and the wide variety of support groups seeking to organise co-operation across organisational, professional and funding boundaries in support of victims and potential victims (i.e. all of us).

Below is the “generic” landing page.

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NORWOOD COMMUNITY SAFETY PARTNERSHIP

 London is outside the national network of  Community Safety Partnerships . Instead it has Safer Neighbourhood Boards funded via the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.  The Norwood Community Safety Partnership is a local pilot, co-hosted by the Lambeth Safer Neighbourhood Board and the Norwood Forum as an unfunded voluntary partnership of equals, although one of its roles is to help participants to secure funding for specific projects.

The strategy is to use volunteers with relevant experience to facilitate practical local co-operation across professional and funding boundaries between local community groups, charities and businesses and organisations (including Council, NHS and Police) which are undergoing radical change in a period of increasing austerity which is expected to last for years not months.

The Steering Group includes local councillors and representatives from:

• the Safer Neighbourhood Panels and Area Neighbourhood Watch groups for the wards of Gipsy Hill, Knights Hill, St Martins and West Dulwich .
• the local Primary Care Networks , Hill Brook and Dale and Croxted and their service provider, including community pharmacies and collective operations like the Well Centre.
• the Business Improvement District and local businesses, including Housing Associations and other Landlords, care and other service providers.
• schools and youth engagement groups, including High Trees and Rathbone.

Police Officers, NHS staff, Council officials and others (including national and pan-London organisations supporting local pilots for wider initiatives) are invited as guests/observers.

The steering group reviews progress with projects and deliverables on a rolling basis (for updating the website as necessary and reporting in a newsletter) with a more formal review once a quarter. Programmes and projects are delivered by consortia of participants and guests/observers. They “report”, as necessary, to those providing their funding. They “inform” the partnership.

The priorities so far identified include:

• Linking the webpages below to more detailed signposting website(s) maintained by locally supervised work experience trainees (e.g. customer service or digital marketing apprentices).
• Additional School Patrols and Safe Havens: to be operational before the nights draw in.
• Safe study spaces and access to work experience and training: priority subjects include care and customer service, hospitality, digital, cyber, construction, conservation, horticulture.
• Piloting engagement (including GPs and Neighbourhood Watch) with programmes such as the follow up to Behind the Lines. (Herne Hill, Dulwich and Norwood was cited in the presentation).
• Piloting early education/intervention to address Child financial exploitation perhaps linked to support for converged action in support of the merger of Red Thread and Catch 22
• Engaging target audiences (particularly vulnerable youngsters with the review of guidance material (for relevance and readability) and its translation into language that will be understood by peers and parents with limited English.

 For sources of advice guidance and support see the following pages:

• Emergency and Non-Emergency Reporting and Contacts
• Community Safety, Safeguarding and Crime Prevention
• Health and Wellbeing
• Youth Engagement
• Access to Work/Skills  

 Please e-mail [email protected] for details and/or an invitation to participate.