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thesouthendproject · 5 years

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Mayor supports 43 local anti-knife crime projects across London10 May 2018

£1.4m of support as part of the Mayor’s comprehensive Knife Crime Strategy

34 projects announced today, in addition to nine which received funding in March

Sadiq Khan more committed than ever to do everything possible to tackle violence on London’s streets

Additional projects funded as a result of the new Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund

Community projects helping to prevent and protect young people from knife crime have today received a share of £1.15m from the Mayor as part of his commitment to do everything in his power to tackle violent crime and youth violence in London.

The 34 successful groups announced today include a martial arts club in Croydon, boxing clubs in Lambeth and Southwark, and mentoring workshops in Newham, Waltham Forest, Merton, Haringey and Hammersmith & Fulham.

A total of £1.4m has now been allocated to 43 anti-knife crime projects across the capital in the last few weeks, after nine schemes were awarded a share of £250,000 in March. Schemes across 19 boroughs will benefit from the new funding, including the ten boroughs most affected by knife crime.

The funding is part of Sadiq’s comprehensive Knife Crime Strategy published in June 2017, which included a £250,000 Knife Crime Community Seed Fund. The mayor has provided an additional £1.15m of new money for these projects through his new Young Londoners Fund, taking the total to £1.4m, after consultation with young people revealed that they want to be engaged with by people from their communities who they know and trust, and who have experienced some of the same issues and challenges around knife crime.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “As Mayor, I have made it a priority not only to be tough on knife crime in London, but tough on the causes of knife crime too. The tragic deaths in recent days and months have highlighted once again how urgently this must be tackled.

“The Government is letting our young people down and failing in its basic duty to keep people safe. At City Hall, we’re doing all we can to compensate for the failure of ministers and we are stepping up to provide unprecedented additional funds to the Met police, as well as driving forward a full and comprehensive Knife Crime Strategy and my £45m Young Londoners Fund, which will help many young people to thrive, prosper and make the right choices to avoid being sucked into a life of crime.

“I refuse to accept that nothing can be done to stem the appalling rise of violent crime we are seeing across the country. The community and grass-roots projects receiving funding today, alongside the projects that were funded earlier in the spring, will help root out violence within our communities and give more young Londoners the skills, support and aspirations they need to turn away from crime and fulfil their potential.”

The Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) will work with the successful bidders to provide mentoring and support, and to assist in building relationships with Safer Neighbourhood Boards. The Knife Crime Community Seed Fund is being managed by London Community Foundation.

The Crib is a pan-London organisation receiving £35,000 to provide people who have been bereaved or affected by knife crime with specialist support, including befriending and advocacy across London. Janette Collins, founder of The Crib, said: “We are now able to spread good practice in the fight against knife crime. It is a fantastic leap forward for our families and organisation.”

The Godwin Lawson Foundation goes to schools in Enfield and Haringey to deliver presentations around the dangers of knife crime. They will receive £47,528 which will help them reach 900 young people. Yvonne Lawson, founder and CEO of the Godwin Lawson Foundation, said: “We are extremely delighted to receive this funding, it will go a long way with our early intervention and prevention programs.”

ML Community Enterprise will receive £50,000 to deliver one-to-one support, group support and counselling to 20 young people engaged in, or at risk of engaging in, knife crime and support for their families in Brixton. Ira Campbell, ML Community Enterprise Ltd, said: “The project will feature readily available victim key-workers, emotional and practical support, and one-to-one specialist therapeutic counselling including innovative arts and sports therapies. We have developed an innovative model of key-working and counselling for young victims of violence, working with the consequences of the victimhood experience and the associated major psychological trauma, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“The primary outcome of the project is to improve young victims physical, mental and emotional health. The project aims to achieve the outcomes of supporting the reduction of violence, crime and anti-social behaviour. We aim to achieve an increase in the confidence and self-esteem of young victims, so they may identify and pursue positive opportunities.”

The full list of projects receiving the additional £1.15m of funding today are:

Prospex (Islington) - £21,061 to provide detached street outreach for up to 150 young people in Islington for 12 months.

Urban Community Projects (Camden) - £8,923 to deliver a project with at-risk young people in Camden Highgate Ward to create a knife and gang crime awareness event for the whole community, reaching 144 people.

Rising Stars Support (Croydon) - £14,622 to deliver 48 mixed martial arts sessions to 120 young people in Croydon.

Academy Achievers (Stratford and West Ham) - £35,855 to deliver anti-knife crime early intervention and outreach for up to 40 young people aged 11 to 18 in Stratford and West Ham.

ML Community Enterprise (Brixton) - £50,000 to deliver one-to-one support, group support and counselling to 20 young males and females engaged in or at risk of engaging in knife crime and support for their families in Brixton, Lambeth.

Fight for Change Foundation (Lambeth and Southwark) - £35,090 to deliver weekly boxing sessions and knife crime awareness and employability workshops for 30 at risk young people from Lambeth and Southwark over six months.

BLBC (Brent) - £10,000 to organise daily term-time community volunteer school patrols in Harlesden and organise groups of parents on four estates in Brent to address the issues of knife crime with their children and young people reaching a total of 100 people.

Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (Haringey) - £44,456 to provide 48 weeks of weekly information and support for up to 360 children transitioning from primary to secondary school and their parents in Tottenham, Haringey.

Ocean Youth Connexions (Tower Hamlets) - £50,000 to deliver two six-month outreach projects and associated workshops over one year to 60 young people engaged in or at risk of engagement in knife related crime on and around the Ocean Estate in Tower Hamlets.

Key4Life CIO (Southwark, Haringey, Lambeth, Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham) - £32,688 to deliver a one-year partnership project preventing youth offending and youth violence by empowering 50 ex-offenders or those at risk of offending to secure employment and train as mentors in Brixton and other London locations.

The Show Crib (pan-London) - £35,000 to employ an outreach and engagement officer to provide 100 people who have been bereaved or affected by knife crime with specialist support including befriending and advocacy across London.

South London Counselling & Support Services (Lewisham and Greenwich) - £20,321 to provide one-to-one counselling and group workshops for up to 100 young victims of crime in Lewisham and Greenwich.

Cassandra Learning Centre (Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark) - £28,417 to deliver one-to-one counselling and group sessions to 100 perpetrators of knife crime from Croydon, Lambeth and Southwark.

Southside Young Leaders’ Academy (Southwark and Lambeth) - £28,600 to work with 40 young black males (aged 8-16) who are at-risk of becoming involved in knife crime and gang activity, via small group workshops and working with parents and local services in Lambeth and Southwark.

Good Shepherd Voluntary Organisation (Newham) - £59,123 to provide peer mentoring to 40 at-risk young people and 10 parenting workshops in Newham.

Chaos Theory (Waltham Forest) - £46,477 to deliver conflict mediation and mentoring in Waltham Forest reaching 45 predominantly young black and Asian men aged between 18 to 25 years.

The St Matthew's Project (Lambeth) - £44,242 to deliver a football and mental health-focussed project for 60 children (aged 5-12) in Lambeth over 45 weeks.

GOAL Gospel Oak Action Link (Camden) - £49,200 to deliver two 10-week programmes of workshops for 30 at-risk young people in Camden, followed by a residential programme with follow up support in order to divert them away from gangs and into education and/or employment.

Unique Talent CIC (Merton) - £22,000 to deliver a series of workshops and peer mentoring to young BAME men aged 24 and under engaged in or at risk of knife crime, along with training sessions to teachers, professionals and parents to raise awareness of risks in Merton.

Real Impact Social Empowerment Projects (Haringey) - £10,140 to deliver a community safety project predominantly aimed at Haringey’s young Somali community, including mentoring, workshops, awareness raising and a one-day summit reaching 300 people overall, in order to reduce knife crime in Wood Green and surrounding areas.

Communities Against Violence (Haringey) - £38,840 to deliver a two-pronged approach supporting victims and perpetrators of knife crime in Haringey via a phone line and outreach service reaching 200 people, and a family-style mentoring programme for four at risk young people.

Ambition, Aspire, Achieve (Newham) - £47,531 to deliver a strategic, grass-roots early intervention community-based project in Newham with the aim of facilitating routes out of gangs for 12 young people and preventing 20 young people from becoming involved in a gang.

Making Communities Work & Grow (Kensington & Chelsea) - £26,625 to deliver outreach for 24 weeks followed by group workshops, one-to-one sessions and general youth centre provision for 40 young BAME men in Kensington and Chelsea.

The VIP - Violence Intervention Project (Hammersmith & Fulham) - £40,230 to deliver a 12-month targeted mentoring programme in Hammersmith and Fulham for 20-25 high-status or high-risk young people aged 15 to 25 years old in the community and in custody.

The 4Front Project Ltd (Barnet) - £46,042 to deliver a youth led intervention project for 75 young people involved in and affected by serious youth violence in Barnet over one year.

StreetDoctors (Croydon & Hackney) - £44,100 to deliver a partnership project to educate up to 300 young people with knowledge of dangers and risks of knife crime, first aid training and lifesaving skills in Croydon and Hackney.

Godwin Lawson Foundation (Enfield and Haringey) - £47,528 to deliver in-school presentations around dangers of knife crime to 900 young people followed by targeted workshops and support for 40 young people across four schools in Enfield and Haringey.

Damilola Taylor Trust (Southwark) - £39,437 to deliver an intense mentoring and development programme to 45 young people, mainly from BAME backgrounds in Southwark over 12 months.

The Greenleaf Trust Ltd (Waltham Forest) - £49,492 to deliver ongoing intervention and prevention initiatives in Waltham Forest and Newham boroughs through outreach work and one-to-one mentoring, reaching 230 young people. The outreach will include a solicitor who will work with young people on understanding the law.

You and Me counselling (Havering) - £14,600 to deliver a project of awareness raising and school talks on the dangers of knife crime followed by family counselling for 12 at-risk young people and their families in Havering, benefitting 140 people overall.

SAAFI Somali Advice and Forum of Information (Brent) - £11,790 to fund 20 group sessions of motivational and mentoring content for 30 Somali young people in Harlesden aged 11-17.

Basic Sports & Fitness (BSF) CIC (Newham) - £19,090 to deliver a 12-month programme of sports and boxing and workshops to 40 at-risk young people in Newham as a diversionary activity away from gangs and violent crime.

The Crib (Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington) - £47,000 to train young people and parents to deliver workshops in educational, youth and community settings to 1,000 beneficiaries across Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington.

Streets of Growth (Tower Hamlets) - £34,646 to outreach to 50 high-risk young people on three estates in Tower Hamlets and deliver coaching support, life skills workshops and anti-social behaviour awareness workshops.

Notes to editors

In January, the community seed funding pot was boosted to £1.4m by the Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund. The Young Londoners Fund was created by Sadiq to support education, sport and cultural activities for young people to help tackle knife crime and youth violence, which has been rising across the country since 2014. In contrast to this investment by the Mayor, central government continues to cut vital services including £22m from London’s youth services since 2011, which has resulted in the closure of some 30 youth centres that had served at least 12,700 young Londoners - London’s Lost Youth Services report (Sian Berry, 2017): https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/london-assembly/assembly-members/publications-sian-berry/publication-sian-berry-londons

The Mayor published his full and comprehensive Knife Crime Strategy in June 2017. Since then:

The Mayor has invested an additional £110m in the Met in 2018-19 compared to the previous year in order to reduce the impact of the Government’s massive cuts to policing budgets. This includes £15m specifically to help tackle knife crime.

The Mayor has created the Young Londoners Fund – a brand-new £45million fund for local communities and charities to help young people fulfil their potential particularly those who are at risk of getting caught up in crime.

Every single London borough now has a bespoke knife crime action plan created in partnership with the Met police.

Every school and college in London can now receive a knife wand, to help keep young people safe and prevent knife crime at school. 200 schools in London have taken up the Mayor's offer of a knife wand and the Deputy for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden, wrote again to schools reminding them of how they can obtain a wand if they would like one.

On 31 October 2017, the Mayor hosted a Knife Crime Education Summit which brought together education providers, education leaders, Principals, Academy Trust Chairs, board members and Governmental bodies to better understand their needs and agree a plan of action to help tackle knife crime. As a result, Ofsted have agreed to deliver a thematic inspection on knife crime and safeguarding in London schools.

The Mayor is working to increase the number of Safer Schools Officers across the capital, to engage with pupils and drive down crime in schools.

The Mayor’s first anti-knife crime media campaign, ‘London Needs You Alive’, launched in November. The campaign brings together role models and social media youth ‘influencers’ to encourage young people away from carrying a knife, focusing on their talent and worth to the capital. With hundreds of thousands of social media followers between them, leading grime artist Yungen, MC Bossman Birdie, photographer Tom Sloan and urban poet Hussain Manawer are among those supporting it.

The Mayor confirmed he is investing £1.4m to continue to provide youth workers in Major Trauma Centres, and place more youth workers to hospital A&E departments, to help steer young Londoners who have been involved in knife crime away from violence in the future.

During Operation Winter Nights, which ran from November until December 2017, the Met made over 900 arrests and took more than 350 weapons off the streets – including 278 knives, 61offensive weapons and 20 firearms. The total number of arrests included 334 arrests following stop and searches.

In November, MOPAC and the Met hosted a retailers’ workshop to discuss what more the business community can do to reduce knife crime. Attendees included representatives from Business Crime Reduction Partnerships, Business Improvement Districts, Trading Standards, Local Police, national retailers, independent retailers, the British Retail Consortium and British Independent Retailer Association.

MOPAC is creating the London Knife Crime Dashboard which will be publicly available. This will be one of a number of dashboards that the public and stakeholders can use access and interpret data on a number of types of crime.

The Mayor has dedicated £7m to projects to help tackle youth violence, including: Gang Exit (£500,000), Major Trauma Centres (£444,615), Information Sharing to Tackle Violence (£168,000), Victim Support Children & Young people (£360,861), and youth projects under the London Crime Prevention Fund (£5,295,717).

MOPAC and the Met continue work to collaborate and learn from other forces and partners on tackling knife crime and violence. Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Sophie Linden and Met Commissioner Cressida Dick met Police Scotland in Glasgow in February.

Prevention is more effective than enforcement, but the fact remains that after years of Government underfunding and cuts, the Met police is significantly underfunded causing a huge drain on resources and officer numbers are falling. Time and again, we have called on the Government, who are responsible for more than 70 per cent of the Met police budget, to do the right thing and give our police the funds they need to keep us safe. But they have refused. We will continue to work tirelessly to help keep our young Londoners safe.

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nhlabornews · 7 years

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AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin 2-24-17: Payroll Deduction And The Expansion Of School Vouchers

February 24, 2017

This week and next week the House will not be in session, due to school winter vacations, though the Senate is holding sessions and many committee hearings continue to be held. So, business continues to be done, though we are in a bit of a pause in the House, before the deluge of bills hits the floor on March 8 & 9. Due to the pause, and trying to closely monitor committee actions, this bulletin is intended to provide a snapshot of where we are and what lies ahead the next few weeks.

Right to Work So-called ‘right to work was defeated soundly on February 16th and also was indefinitely postponed. However, it is “not quite dead yet:” Yes, you read that correctly. The House version of so-called right to work (HB 520), is a virtual carbon copy of the Senate version decisively rejected by the House last week. However, there does need to be one more vote on the House bill. On either March 8 or 9, there will be a procedural vote on whether to take up HB 520 in the House. A 2/3 margin is needed to take up the bill, so it is unlikely to rise from the dead, but opponents of anti-worker, so-called ‘right to work’ legislation will need to be vigilant and in their seats, ready to vote to defeat the motion. AFT-NH is actively engaged with our fellow labor unions and community allies to close out this ugly chapter.

It is not too late to thank those legislators who stood with us to defeat right to work. To view the list, please click here. If you click on the name of the representative, the contact information is provided.

Payroll Deduction (HB 438) As you may already know, this proposal is a companion piece to so-called right to work, except it lacks even the flimsy veneer of ideological justification so often touted by advocates of so-called right-to-work. It is vindictive and an undisguised assault on the financial basis of labor organizations, their member dues. Under this legislation, no public employer will be allowed to deduct union dues from an employee’s wages, meaning the union must develop alternative means of collecting dues. Payroll deduction is a long-standing system that is negotiated in contracts, and must be authorized by individual union members. Yet unlike voluntary contributions to charities, apprenticeship funds, voluntary health insurance, or savings funds, all of which will continue to be allowed as voluntary deductions, union dues will be singled out and barred by law from payroll deduction. Why such a prohibition? To simply weaken the ability of unions to collect member dues, thereby weakening their financial foundations and ultimately, weakening the ability of labor unions to fight for their members, whether it be for better wages and benefits, workplace protections, or simply having a voice in the workplace. In essence, time for workers to return to the good old days, before labor unions, when the employer was unchallenged and the worker, to quote Frank Zappa, had to “do as you are told, until the rights to you are sold.”

The public hearing on this bill will be held on Wednesday, March 1, in front of the House Labor Committee, beginning at 10 am in LOB 305-307. If you are able to do so, please attend the hearing and register your opposition. You can also send an email to the entire House Labor Committee at

[email protected]

Education Legislation This week yielded up a mixed bag in regards to education-related legislation. A proposal (HB 505) to create a new, alternative body to authorize charter schools (thereby making it even easier to establish such schools) was retained by the Education Committee, meaning it will not come to the floor of the House in 2017 but could be addressed in 2018. That is a victory, at least in terms of delaying action. Another bill (HB 429), to strip the judiciary of any role in determining adequate education funding, was unanimously recommended to be killed by the House Legislative Administration Committee. Given the obvious and repeated failures of the Legislature in years past to adequately fund public education, this is a victory.

However, legislation to create a statewide education voucher system in NH continues to move forward. Last week, the House narrowly approved (along largely party lines) a bill (HB 647-FN) to establish a voucher system for use by parents of children with disabilities. While we all care deeply about such children, a voucher system that removes funding from the public schools and gives it to parents to use for private and/or religious education, is simply wrong for NH, weakening the public system and providing direct aid to schools that quite often do not need to meet the same stringent requirements and thresholds of traditional public schools. This bill now proceeds to House Finance (Division II) which will be conducting hearings on Feb. 28th and March 2nd. Stay tuned for specific actions on this bill as we determine the direction which will be taken from House Finance.

Meanwhile, in the Senate yesterday, SB 193-FN passed 13-10. This bill would establish a statewide voucher system for all students in NH, moving millions in taxpayer funds into private and religious schools. The impact on local communities is incalculable at this point, but these bills could easily be labeled as “Raise Your Local Property Tax” legislation. Traditional public school facilities would still need to be maintained, programs offered, and requirements met, but the funding would decrease while taxpayer dollars flow into private and religious schools. Needless to say, this is bad legislation, but is supported by Governor Chris Sununu as well as his new Commissioner of Education, Frank Edelblut. This bill is now referred to Senate Finance. Both SB 193 and HB 647 will reappear in late March.

There is also the so-called “Croydon” bill, SB 8-FN, which passed the Senate this week. This bill would allow a school board to contract with a private school if there is no public school in the student’s grade in its district. More diversion of tax dollars to private schools. This will proceed to Senate Finance. The topic of non-academic surveys was also addressed by the Senate in SB 43 which no student shall be required to participate in these surveys without written consent from the parent or guardian. The only exception to this would be the youth risk behavior survey developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, a parent could opt out on behalf of the student.

As a member of the NH Retirement Security Coalition, we continue to monitor any bills affecting the NH Retirement System and your benefits. HB 413, which would require the State to pay 15% of the retirement obligation to local communities, is now in House Finance (Division I) and will have a public hearing on February 28th. This bill would provide much needed relief to local communities.

There is much else going on in Concord as we approach the “cross-over” when are bills are due to be voted on by the respective chamber and sent to the other body. We will keep you posted in those bills where there is need for immediate action. Breaking news first appears on our AFT New Hampshire page, so please have your friends, family and colleagues take a moment to like our page!

For those of you starting your February vacation, enjoy your time off and the warmer weather. Spring is around the corner.

In Solidarity,

Douglas Ley

AFT-NH, President

AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin 2-24-17: Payroll Deduction And The Expansion Of School Vouchers was originally published on NH LABOR NEWS

#education #Payroll Deduction #Right To Work #School Vouchers

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