Ethos Public Relations Manchester

2,500 Rochdale children and young people take home citizenship message

by Ethos public relations

As Baroness Newlove, the government appointed champion for safer communities, publishes her much awaited  report on crime, one Rochdale housing company believes it is already pushing the boundaries of ‘people power’ through its work with thousands of young people.

Ruth Sillence Communities First Co-ordinator for Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) said the report had a lot of great ideas for adults but it would have also been useful to have seen some ideas on how to engage with children and young people.

“In our experience, working with the young provides a great chance to influence positive behaviour in the future,” she said.

With this in mind, RBH has directly commissioned workshops with the No Way Trust to work with high school children and raise issues about avoiding crime, the impact of anti-social behaviour and how getting involved even in ‘low level’ crime can have consequences for years to come.

“The course pulls no punches,” said Ruth. “The Trust has a fully furnished life - size replica prison cell and an authentic ‘Street Set’ used for acting out anti-social instances.

“Real life prisoner insight and gun and knife crime workshops further complement the learning experience. The day is both engaging and interactive; the idea is for the pupils to experience the restriction prison places upon its inmates and for them to recognise the true value of their own liberty.”

By the end of 2011 RBH will have worked with eight high schools in the borough reaching around 2000 young people with their message about taking control of your own actions and having the power to say no to crime and to peer group pressure.

In her report Baroness Newlove said everyone had a role to play in making our communities safer and argues that people need to take control and solve problems for themselves.

“RBH has an award winning approach to engagement with communities and in particular with children,” said Ruth. “The programme started as part of a Communities First initiative when we worked with primary school children to talk about their environment, what they saw around them and what they felt they could do to change it. This was so successful we looked at taking things a step further and working with older children.”

The impact of the work with schools is difficult to quantify but the feedback from both primary and high school pupils and staff has been very positive with almost 100% of pupils saying the course was ‘valuable’ and ‘very valuable’.

Ruth adds: “In all, RBH has taken its anti-crime and anti-social behaviour message to around 2500 young people in Rochdale. That’s 2500 future citizens who could play an important role in making their neighbourhoods safe for everyone to enjoy.”

For more news from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing click here.

Posted at 13^th April 2011