“I’m sure many of the people I have met and worked with over the years noticed that I made a rare appearance in a suit, to host the launch of the NHS London Violence Reduction Academy at Trinity House, east London.
Delegates heard some excellent presentations from practitioners, who deliver the highest level of Trauma Care in the UK every day; to young people who want to change how the NHS treat young people; and academics who will help us use learning, collaboration and data to change lives. Read more about the presentations elsewhere in this newsletter.
Presentations demonstrated how far violence reduction has come as a way of working within the NHS, from humble beginnings as pilot projects in a small number of hospitals across the country, to now being offered as standard in almost 70 hospitals nationwide, as well as pilot social prescribing and community psychological care models. I see the launch of the Violence Reduction Academy as NHS London embarking on the next major step – the provision of a solid evidence base that highlights and champions best practice across healthcare.
We express our gratitude to all speakers for their contributions to the event’s success, but in particular Rico and Rose who did such a good job of highlighting the need to strive for better healthcare for our young people.
Their experiences of working alongside the NHS Violence Reduction Programme supported by Peer Power, has helped engender a sense of trust within healthcare. Both now understand better how to navigate what can be a complex service and feel confident to advocate for themselves and other young people. Conversations like this reinforce my sentiments that young people are not hard to reach, but it is NHS services that can be hard to access or understand.
Through the success of the launch, we have received lots of new interest and engagement. But now the work for us truly begins as we focus on working with our academic partners in to deliver to the NHS, a cohesive, evidence based package of what health-based violence reduction looks like in future.
A call for evidence will be announced very soon and we would encourage anyone working in a relevant field to get in touch and share with us projects they may have been involved in or supported. We also encourage you to look at our work-in-progress website and let us know what kind of content you would like to see. We want the website to be a useful and accessible hub of information and learning, we value your thoughts on what features or resources would be most helpful. A survey is currently available here. Visit us and tell us what you think.
Thank you for your continued support. I’m very excited to share our learning process with you.”
Michael Carver
Clinical Lead for the Violence Reduction Academy
