A dissemination and learning event with the Mayor’s VRU of two funded projects Everyone’s Business and Black Men for Change
Between March 2020 to March 2022 the Mayors Violence Reduction Unit funded two unique programmes; Everyone’s Business led by the East London Business Alliance and Black Men for Change, led by Hackney CVS. Both programmes adopted an innovative approach to supporting at risk young people away from pathways of violence.
This event is a chance to hear directly from some of the young people and key stakeholders who participated in these programmes, understand some of the learnings and achievements and reflect on some of the cross-cutting themes.
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Everyone’s Business is ELBA’s youth employment and capacity building programme. The two-year pilot, funded by the Violence Reduction Unit and steered by the community and voluntary sector-led organisations (Spark 2 Life, REIN, Streets of Growth, Volunteer Centre Tower Hamlets and Barking and Dagenham Giving), provides young people from disadvantaged and marginalised communities opportunities to improve their employment skills and gain access to sustainable careers.
The project was designed to answer the question: ‘To what extent does the collaborative work between business and voluntary sectors lead to reduction in young people’s involvement in serious youth violence (SYV).Some of our key successes included;
91% of active beneficiaries have not been involved in SYV during their engagement in the programme. ELBA’s corporate members and partners engaged heavily in mentoring, training and employability support.
The Everyone’s Business programme highlighted the fact that long-lasting positive life changes are unlikely to happen in a short amount of time, for some young people on the caseload, risk and vulnerability is embedded in their lives. The bespoke nature of the needs that young people have to navigate life away from serious youth violence, must be matched with long-term support for these needs.
At ELBA, we proceed to work in supporting the young people engaged in the programme, and aim to secure further funding to continue its legacy.
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The Council, Hackney CVS and other local agencies have worked with young people and parents to launch an ambitious plan to improve life chances for young black men. Young black men tend to fare worse than their peers in many ways, from poorer educational results to higher rates of offending. This has been a problem for many years and public bodies and the community have tried many different approaches to dealing with it, but none have had the desired impact.
Rather than tackling individual problems, our approach involves local people, the voluntary and community sector and the public sector in shaping and delivering the solutions, with young people at its heart.
The work is championed by Cllr Bramble, lead cabinet member for children and young people. We’re aiming to improve life chances for future generations of young men as well as coordinate support and opportunities for those who are 18-25 now. There are many black boys, young black men and black families that are succeeding in Hackney. It’s vital that this work doesn’t stereotype black men or the black community or treat them as problems. The focus of this programme is on harnessing successful young black men’s potential, increasing their visibility, and tackling inequalities where they exist.