Home Office
The VRUs/Ps are being established to offer leadership, bring all relevant local organisations together, and provide strategic coordination of the local response to serious violence.
VRUs/Ps will support a multi-agency, public health, long-term approach to preventing and tackling serious violence by working in a way which is:
- Focused on a defined population
- With and for communities
- Not constrained by organisational or professional boundaries
- Focussed on generating long term, as well as short term, solutions
- Based on data and intelligence to identify the burden on the population, including any inequalities
- Rooted in evidence of effectiveness to tackle the problem
Uniting Leaders around a shared long-term ambition
To achieve the change that we want to make for people that live, work in or pass through the West Midlands, the VRP has convened an executive oversight group which includes representatives from:
- Integrated Care Boards
- Crown Prosecution Service
- Local Authorities
- NHSE and NHS Improvement
- Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner
- West Midlands Probation Service
- Regional Schools Commissioner
- West Midlands Police
- West Midlands Sports Partnership Violence Reduction Board
- WMCA
- Youth Offending Services
- Representatives for communities and young people
- West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service
This executive group meets to review:
- The programmes development: Our progress against the issues highlighted within the needs assessment and the development of a multi-year partnership response strategy. Chaired by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.
- The impact and evaluation of our interventions: In order to support the adoption and roll out of successful interventions.
- System Change: To support violence reduction initiatives that cross organisational boundaries and to transform the way we work together in local places to protect those most at risk of violence.
Engaging wider partnership networks
The VRP builds on a strong legacy of the Violence Reduction Alliance and the Gangs and Violence Commission. Both of these endeavours featured widespread community involvement, and we are keen to preserve that. The VRP has an existing partnership reference group with over 80 members, and the number of people interested in working with us is growing.
