Events

‘Child First approaches to tackling youth crime and violence’, Durham Leadership Centre, 7^th November 2025

Our fourth event, entitled ‘Child First approaches to tackling youth crime and violence’ was held at Durham Leadership Centre to provide a venue that could be more accessible for some of our more southernly located members – a big thank you to Lisa Ingelby and Durham CC for allowing us to use this fantastic venue!

Lisa Ingleby, Alternative Provision and Inclusion Provider, Durham County Council – Lisa presented Durham’s transitions project, which delivers early intervention support to vulnerable students moving from primary to secondary school. She described how targeted intervention programs covering healthy relationships, online safety, peer pressure, and emotional regulation, have had a substantial impact for these young people. The transitions program has reduced suspensions and exclusions while helping vulnerable students, particularly those at highest risk, successfully integrate into secondary school with improved attendance and positive relationships.

Peer Action Collective (PAC) team, NE Youth – Our two fantastic speakers from this team – Penny Rosemond and Aaron Ridley – led a thoroughly enjoyable icebreaker for our attendees, demonstrating the importance of fun in building relationships. The PAC team further discussed their work as peer researchers into ‘Implementing Youth Voice’: what good youth voice looks like for professionals and services, and the toolkit they have developed to help practitioners move from consultation with young people to co-production.

Final group discussion, conclusion and next steps…
1. What does ‘child first’ mean in your context?
2. How could a more joined up approach to ‘child first’ be taken across agencies? What might need to change?
3. Are ‘child first’ policies and practices an effective way to tackle issues of serious youth violence?

Copies of the presentations from this event can be found under Resources.

‘Young Futures Hubs in the North East – their promise and potential pitfalls’, in collaboration with Dr Luke Billingham, Northumbria University, 12th May 2025

Our third event, entitled ‘Youth Futures Hubs in the North East’ was held at Northumbria University and hosted in collaboration with our fantastic guest speaker Dr Luke Billingham on 12th May 2025.

In this session we were joined by Dr Luke Billingham, who explored Young Futures Hubs and their potential impact for the North East. As both an academic at the Open University and youth and community worker in North East London, Luke has worked extensively with young people affected by or at risk of violence, and brought a wealth of experience and a thought-provoking perspective to the discussion. You can find out more about Luke here –Luke Billingham | OU people profiles

This event included presentations from our guest speaker, small group discussions and activities, and opportunities for wider networking and Q & A’s.

Event aims –

• Understand the context for Young Futures Hubs
• Share knowledge about the Young Futures Hubs model/approach as we currently understand it from government
• Share knowledge about Young Futures Hubs in the North East
• Discuss our concerns and hopes for Young Futures Hubs
• Discuss the potential pitfalls to avoid when developing Young Futures Hubs in the NE
• Discuss the promise of Young Futures Hubs in the NE – how to ensure they’re maximally beneficial for the children and young people of the NE
• Ensuring a high-quality local co-design process for Young Futures Hubs

‘Co-production with justice-involved young people’, online, 29^th January 2025

Our second event, entitled ‘Co-production with justice-involved young people’ was held online on the 29th January 2025.

We welcomed three excellent and thought provoking guest speakers: Dr Fern Gillon, Research Associate at Strathclyde University; Pippa Rous, Music Therapist at Nordoff & Robbins Music Therapy; and Dr Samantha Burns, Research Associate in the Manchester Centre for Youth Studies (MCYS), Manchester Metropolitan University.

Violence involving young people in the UK is a topic of widespread and growing concern, yet public discourse on violence is often framed in a narrow way that drives social policy toward criminalisation. Dr Fern Gillon spoke about the Public Health, Youth and Violence Reduction project who undertook a period of action research with a group of young men affected by violence in Glasgow, during which ‘The Wise Men’ coproduced a range of multimedia outputs which are being developed as a violence reduction resource for schools and youth organisations. This presentation shared information about the resource, its development and the lessons learned about coproduction.

Pippa Rous presented a case study that demonstrates music therapy work in a client-led dynamic to help a young person write songs. The case study outlined her context as a young person with ACEs and how music therapy has helped to support her background and future interests. Pippa has worked in a client-led dynamic and will outline the different ways she has supported ‘J’ to develop while maintaining client-led. She discussed the ways ‘J”s musical and personal development have interacted in the songwriting process. She showcased audio and visual examples by placing video extracts through the presentation, which demonstrated ‘J”s progression in sessions.

Dr Samantha Burn’s presentation addressed the challenges of co-production in ‘high risk’ panels which highlights a paradox of participatory justice with children and difficulties of embedding co-production with children in multi-agency responses.

‘Risk outside the home and trauma informed practice’, Northumbria University, 18^th September 2024

The first workshop of the network was held on the 18th of September 2024 where we welcomed our members to Northumbria University. A special thanks to our speakers for some exceptional talks.

• Presentation 1: Redcar and Cleveland SAFE (Safeguarding Adolescents from Exploitation) team and ROTH (Risk Outside the Home) Pilot.
  

  Rebecca Cheesman, Nikky Henry, Sarah Edwards and Louise Stephens.

  Our SAFE (Safeguarding Adolescents from Exploitation) Team is a specialist exploitation team working with children, young people and their families and carers to respond to, reduce and disrupt risks of exploitation.

  Our presenters discussed the rollout of our SAFE team work so far as well as findings from the ROTH (Risk Outside the Home) Pilot which is now entering Year 3.

•  Presentation 2: The Framework for Integrated Care (Community) and Trusting Hands Gateshead.
  

  Dr Aisling Martin, Consultant Clinical Psychologist

  Trusting Hands Gateshead is a pilot project as part of NaqHS England’s Framework for Integrated Care (Community). The team was developed in partnership between Gateshead Council and CNTW NHS Foundation Trust and consists of experienced mental health clinicians embedded within Children’s Social Care. The service works collaboratively across Gateshead Children’s Services and partner agencies to provide support to professionals working with children and young people who present with ‘high risk, high harm, high vulnerability’ needs. The aim of the work is to enable and prioritise compassionate and reflective responding in a way that meets the needs of the young person rather than reacting to risky behaviour.