Durham Serious Violence Prevention Partnership / Violence Prevention Fund - An evaluation of four projects

Working with colleagues in the Durham Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) criminologists from Northumbria University (Professor Sarah Soppitt, Dr Rebecca Oswald and Dr Samantha Walker) conducted a small-scale project to help establish, in partnership with the projects funded through Violence Prevention Fund (VPF), what ‘success’ looks like and how it is captured and measured when looking at serious youth violence (SYV) interventions. Specifically, the focus was on four individual projects established through support from the Durham Serious Violence Prevention Partnership, as well as the wider collective impact of the partnership’s activity.

Online interviews were conducted with 11 members of the Durham Serious Violence Prevention Partnership: Violence Prevention Fund Operational Group.

Key Findings, and implications for the next steps:

➢ Early intervention: projects were well designed and positioned to support early intervention for young people at risk of involvement in serious youth violence.

➢ Changing demographics: the projects understood the demographic changes relating to young people involved in SYV, the connections to ASB, and the challenges this poses. Further consideration may be required for the growing number of girls involved in violence and serious youth violence.

➢ Uncertain targeting of ‘at risk’ populations; further clarity needed as to who is being classed as in scope for the intervention(s), the underpinning evidence to support their inclusion, and how this is nuanced across projects.

➢ Eligibility criteria: the evidence base which identifies whether young people being ‘included’ or ‘excluded’ could benefit from being shared and reviewed across projects.

➢ High level success measures: articulating how individual projects are contributing to the overall serious violence fund objectives and the OPCC measures of success would aid in ensuring success can be attributed appropriately.

➢ Danger of duplication: clarity as to the target group for the intervention(s) and focus of the intervention(s) to avoid duplication and intervention fatigue.

➢ Unreliable data collection: data collection methods across projects varied significantly and made holistic assessments challenging.