Since early 2000 Alison has worked tirelessly to provide opportunities for young people and families in the local neighbourhoods she is most passionat…
Since early 2000 Alison has worked tirelessly to provide opportunities for young people and families in the local neighbourhoods she is most passionate about. These communities are in Yardley and Hodge Hill – areas which experience some of the highest levels of deprivation in the whole of the country.
It was speaking to a group of local young people who saw a life of crime as the only option that gave Alison the impetus to change their perceptions and aspirations before it was too late.
Starting from humble beginnings running a football project in the Glebe Farm area of East Birmingham, Alison went on to secure funding through the Birmingham Children’s Fund and StreetGames in 2006 to set-up her own Community Interest Company, ‘FITCAP’ (Fitness in the Community, Active Play). The CIC exists to provide activities to encourage healthy lifestyles, get children and young people off the streets and offer training and volunteering opportunities.
To get in touch with Alison, please email [email protected]
Navigators are based in priority places and provide advice, guidance and support to local partnerships and communities to find interventions and opportunities to prevent and reduce violence. They develop connections between services and systems and support the development of effective referral pathways into key services. They ensure support is available to communities in the aftermath of serious violence which is critical to preventing the onward transmission of violence and limiting the impact of trauma related to incidents.
Navigators provide opportunities to access a range of training that can build understanding of the role everyone can play in violence prevention and reduction. They deliver the VRP Core Offer and support local organisations in finding funding, accessing training and to become part of the local systems, including providing access to stakeholder networks.
No single intervention alone can reduce and prevent violence, in priority places the delivery team works with local stakeholders, communities and young people to understand what is available, respond to gaps in provision and strive towards sustainable whole system, place based approaches. A key step in achieving this is setting up, or contributing to existing, stakeholder networks that provide opportunities for local people to meet regularly around the issue of violence prevention and reduction. These networks bring services together, in an effort to maximise resources and avoid silo ways of working. The ambition for the networks is that they support a long term approach to reducing violence.
