An investment of £4.6m in lottery funding will allow a successful project to be rolled out across the UK
A project which is the only one of its kind in the country diverting young people away from a life in serious organised crime is being rolled out across the UK.
Action for Children has received £4.6 million in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund – the largest funder of community activity in the UK - to roll out its Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention service, which has operated in Glasgow since 2013, across the UK. The roll-out will initially see Action for Children deliver the project in Edinburgh from January, with Cardiff and Newcastle from April.
An annual study into the project’s effectiveness showed out of the most recent group of 49 young people, just four continued to offend after engaging with the project. A previous study also found 71% of young people who have used the service were kept out of secure care for at least six months during involvement with the programme – including a number deemed “high risk” by the children’s panel. In 2017/18, analysis into the project showed that by diverting four high risk young people from secure care, the project represented a saving of over half a million pounds for Glasgow City Council over a six-month period alone.
The charity as well as partners and funders believe that crucial to the project’s success is the role of peer mentors. Action for Children has employed almost 100 former service users it has previously supported, with many of these acting as peer mentors within projects, providing accessible role models to young people the charity currently works with.
To date, the project has worked with hundreds of young people and has operated since 2013, when Paul Carberry, the charity’s director for Scotland, was invited to join the Scottish Government’s Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, where he chairs the Divert strand. The Divert workstream has the objective of diverting young people from becoming involved in serious organised crime and using its products.
Carberry said: “We are very proud to be rolling out our successful Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention service.
“There are many young people in our communities who are caught up in organised crime. We are not talking about gangs or group of kids hanging about the streets fighting with each other, we are talking about organised crime, serious activity which has a real devastating effect on our communities, particularly the most vulnerable communities. We recognise the need to give young people alternatives, we need to get them into employment and get them the right support and help.
“We believe that the best way to do this is by example and giving young people role models who have been on the journey themselves and those peer mentors are our most powerful tool. Since 2013, our Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention service has worked intensively with more than 70 young people across Glasgow, diverting them away from a life in serious organised crime and into positive opportunities including education, training and employment. The role of peer mentors has been key to that.
“Working in partnership Glasgow’s Health & Social Care Partnership, Police Scotland and the Scottish Government, we are all very proud to have delivered a real Scottish success story. Scotland really is leading the way when it comes to dealing with serious organised crime. Now, thanks to funding from The National Lottery, we are able to deliver this work across the UK.”
I’m glad I’ve moved on
Kieran is 19 and has been supported by Action for Children’s Serious Organised Crime Early Intervention service. Life is a lot more settled for him now, he lives with his girlfriend and has a full-time job in a kitchen. But it was very different growing up.
He grew up in an estate rife with drugs and drug dealing. It was almost natural that Kieran fell into this way of life. "When you live where I did, you didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “Up and down the stairs in the flats I stayed in there were people injecting into their arms. I saw that from the age of five.”
Not long out of primary school, he came to the attention of organised crime groups in the area and given drugs to sell: “I was about 11 and selling drugs and being paid in cigarettes. But very soon we had the chance to make money from it,” he said. “It started with cannabis then moved to Valium and harder stuff like heroin.
As he grew older, the nature of the crimes became more serious. “I was involved with gangs, battering people, stealing cars to order, selling drugs, it was all about making money,” he said. “As I got older, if people didn’t pay us, we were sent to their door. It was out of control, really. But that’s what we were told to do and if we wanted money, we did it.”
Eventually, as the crimes got more serious, and more violent, the police became involved and it was then he realised he needed to make a break away from that life. “Really, I’ve seen it all. When I was about 14, one of my friends had his face slashed as we battled with another gang. It shakes you up, but it was a gang fight, that’s what happens, it was all to do with drugs and money,” he said. “I got caught by the police eventually. I didn’t get done for it, but it put the fear into me, so I started to pull away from that life.”
Soon after, he was referred to the Action for Children project and hasn’t looked back. He has since moved away from the area where he grew up, and the organised crime groups who controlled the area. “I couldn’t go back there - the same people are still in control of that estate,” he says. “It probably would have been a lot easier to stay where I was and making the money I was, but it was made through violence and drugs. That’s my old life and I’m glad it’s not the life I have now. It’s not the future I want for my family.”
