Our Approach & Priorities
Our Approach
​​We take a public health approach to preventing and reducing serious violence and this is embedded within our principles and processes. We routinely follow the World Health Organisation’s four step process when designing services and interventions aimed at preventing violence. The diagram below explains the public health approach and the four-step process we consistently follow:
What is our serious violence problem and what is causing it?
The first step involves analysing available data and community insights so that we have a good understanding of what violence looks like and what the drivers are. Because violence and its drives evolve, we review data and insights regularly.
How will we share and embed our learning?
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If we find that an approach is preventing violence, as a partnership we'll make the decision to scale up these interventions so that we can reach more people. We'll also share our learning locally and nationally through publishing reports and knowledge exchange events.
What is the best way for us to tackle our local issues?
Next we need to consult the evidence-base to see what interventions the research says is likely to tackle our local serious violence problem, reduce risk factors and strengthen protective factors.
Have our responses been effective?
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Now that we understand our local issues and which approaches work best at tackling them, we should test them to see if they're effective. This involves spending time working out what will be delivered, and how we'll know if it's worked.
Every year we produce a Strategic Needs Assessment which uses data and insights from a range of sources to arrive at an in depth understanding of the extent and nature of violence locally and the prevalence of risk and protective factors in our local area. We also review the latest evidence from research as to what is most likely to have an impact at an individual, relationship, community and societal level.
To ensure we develop strategies and interventions which maximise our impact, we use the following prevention framework.
Primary
Prevention
Addressing the root causes
to stop violence from happening
in the first place.
Secondary
Prevention
Identifying, intervening and
diverting at-risk individuals.
Identification and pursuit of earlier opportunities for prevention
Tiertiary
Prevention
Preventing violence
from occurring again
through rehabilitation
and recovery
Primary Prevention: Prevent violence from occurring in the first place through addressing root causes of the earliest stage in the life-course. The aim is to avoid involvement in violence.
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Secondary Prevention: Prevent the progression of violence through early identification, intervention and diversion. The aim is to intervene promptly to halt progression.
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Tertiary Prevention: Reduce impact and prevent recurrence through Criminal Justice responses and providing rehabilitation and recovery opportunities to perpetrators and victims. The aims are to prevent reoffending and repeat victimisation.
Priorities
The VRN partnership defines serious violence as:
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“Violence resulting in significant physical injury and other serious harm, including sexual violence. Violence may be committed with or without weapons, and may take place in domestic or public places”
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However, we continue to prioritise violence affecting children and young people due to this groups being disproportionately impacted. We also remain committed to preventing and reducing all forms of violence recognising that they are inter-connected including sharing common causes and consequences for individuals, families and communities. To reflect this broad view of violence, our partnership also embraces the WHO broader definition of violence:
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​“The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”
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Behaviours such as bullying, intimidation, coercion, exploitation, physical, sexual and emotional violence and abuse fall within our definition. Our partnership will continue to connect the dots between different types of violence when pursuing preventative strategies and activities.
Our Priorities
The VRN partnership has agreed 7 prevention priorities which form the basis for our Serious Violence Prevention Strategy. Every year we agree an annual delivery plan to ensure we are continuously delivering activity under each priority.
