[Press Release]
St Giles Trust welcomed West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street to their Coventry office on Tuesday 23rd January 2024, to discuss the charity’s work to reduce youth violence in the West Midlands.
Met by St Giles CEO Tracey Burley, the Mayor met with caseworkers and project leaders to share expertise about the impact of St Giles projects in hospitals and in the community.
Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, said:
“Organisations like St Giles play a vital role in tackling youth violence and finding innovative ways to break the cycle of harm this sadly causes. Local projects like this show how – by working in partnership with charities, the police, hospitals, schools and the community – we can drive down violent crime right across our region.”
St Giles CEO Tracey Burley, said of the visit:
“It was fantastic to welcome the Mayor to our Coventry office to hear directly from our caseworkers, team leaders and partners about the impact of our projects to reduce youth violence in the West Midlands. Breaking the cycle of youth violence is hard, but our projects show it can be done. What we need now is commitment from leaders everywhere to tackle this issue head on and take the actions needed to reduce violence.”
St Giles Trust works in hospitals to reduce youth violence
The Hospital programme is delivered in A&E departments in hospitals across the West Midlands. It works by offering practical support and guidance to under 25-year-olds admitted to A&E with an injury related to violence to help reduce their risk of becoming involved in youth violence again.
To be able to engage with a young person at a time when they are most in need, St Giles works to prevent them being discharged back into the same situation that led them to being injured. This intervention has been shown to reduce readmission rates for serious youth violence from 40% down to 8%.
St Giles works with partners to reduce youth violence
The Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV), is a focussed deterrent programme which seeks to identify people most likely to be involved in violence and works with them to develop routes away from it towards work, education, training and other positive activities.
St Giles in the Midlands
St Giles Trust has been working in The Midlands since 2016. It is currently running 19 projects supporting thousands of people across the region through intensive one-to-one support, advice and guidance sessions and group work.
St Giles mission is to help people held back by poverty, unemployment, the criminal justice system, homelessness, exploitation and abuse to build a positive future. This includes young people in the Midlands facing the greatest adversity through economic circumstances, at risk of exploitation and being caught up in a cycle of serious youth violence.
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