Announcing our 2024/25 grant recipients
We are delighted to announce that we have been able to award over £300,000 to 18 Essex-based charities from the 2024/25 VVU community grant. The grants have been given to a wide range of organisations across the county and will enable local charities to help steer young people away from crime, as well as supporting […]
Knife crime creative writing winner
We were delighted to be able to visit the Stanway School, Colchester last week to award our creative writing competition winner her prize. Rebecca, a YR 8 pupil, entered our competition back in October to write a piece of creative writing on the subject of knife harm. The competition was held in partnership with Essex […]
Community Safety Expo
Partnership work leads to success in getting crime down. That was the key message from the PFCC Essex’s Community Safety Expo 24 held last week at Boreham House near Chelmsford. The Expo was attended by more than 250 representatives of community safety partners, including Essex Police, Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, the Violence and […]
National Engaging Communities Conference
The Essex Violence and Vulnerability Unit and ECVYS (Essex Council for Voluntary Youth Services) attended the National Engaging Communities Conference in Manchester on the 7 February 2024. The conference was arranged to share best practice and develop new skills around engaging our communities in the reduction of community-based violence. The sessions were interactive with the […]
Home Office VRU evaluation
In late December 2023, the Home Office published their evaluation into Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) for 2022 / 2023. The full report and executive summary can be read here This is a report on progress across the 20 VRUs, of which Essex is one. The findings are encouraging, showing that a statistically significant reduction in […]
Youth groups we want to listen to you!
Last year the Essex Violence and Vulnerability Unit invested £1.6million in county wide interventions to help keep young people across Southend, Essex and Thurrock safe. The interventions the money was invested in were based on information gathered from the 2022 Listening Project which asked young people across Essex what they need to feel safe and […]
