Keeping young people and families safe

We asked

In October we facilitated a range of engagement sessions with children and young people to gather their experiences and perceptions of violence and exploitation that may have affected them in Barnet. The sessions were designed to engage young people, residents, professionals and businesses working and living in Barnet and to understand the following:

perceptions of violence and exploitation in Barnet
factors that support feeling safer or more at risk
areas and priorities that people feel the council should implement / drive to improve, safety, and response to violence and exploitation.

You said

We had over 50 young people who engaged in the focus groups, and over 200 people participated in our interactive online surveys. We were able to engage a range of residents and businesses in ‘walkaround surveys’.

We did

From the sessions, we have incorporated the key themes that emerged into two priority area:

Tackling Serious Violence Strategy 2024 - 27
Tackling Exploitation Strategy 2024 - 27

Both of these strategies will be published in March 2024, and will outline our collective approaches to how we are working together to support the safety of residents and young people living in Barnet.

From January 2024 we will be holding a range of further consultation sessions to support the release of our Tackling Serious Violence Strategy, and further sessions to support the co-production of our Tackling Exploitation Strategy.