Sheffield SAFE Taskforce
SAFE Programme Overview
Background on serious violence
The cross-government Beating Crime Plan published in July 2021 announced investment of over £45m in specialist support in both mainstream and Alternative Provision (AP) schools in serious violence hotspots to support young people at risk of involvement in violence to re-engage with education. The majority of this funding is focussed on investment into mainstream schools called the SAFE Taskforces programme.
SAFE Taskforces bring together mainstream schools to commission evidence-based interventions to Support young people with challenging behaviour, enabling them to Attend school regularly so they can Fulfil their potential and prevent costly poor life outcomes by inspiring them to Exceed their expectations.
This programme is designed to be school-led because school leaders, teachers and staff have a distinct expertise and access to make a difference in young people’s lives. We recognise serious youth violence is not an issue that can be solved by schools alone. However, the aim of the Taskforce is to get upstream of serious violence by tackling the education indicators that are also associated with a young person being more at risk of involvement in serious violence.
Schools are already working hard to support young people at risk and often want to do more, but funding and time can be a barrier. A school snapshot survey (Winter 2019) showed that around a third (35%) of schools surveyed were involved in local projects to prevent knife crime. This was more than the proportion that were actively dealing with knife crime as a safeguarding issue within their own schools (29%).
Sheffield SAFE Taskforce’s Vision and Ambition
The Taskforce will invest in and commission interventions for those at risk to:
- Reduce involvement in serious violence;
- Improve social emotional regulation and well-being;
- Improve attendance;
- Improve behaviour in school and the local area.
Part of the role of the SAFE Taskforce is to get upstream on serious violence by tackling the education indicators associated with it. We know young people who are disengaged from education are often also more likely to be involved in serious violence, for example.
We have identified the following two cohorts to focus on:
- Pupils already known to be involved in serious violence or who are in close proximity to serious violence due to contextual factors such as peer groups, family, or neighbourhood; and
- Pupils who are disengaged from education e.g. truancy, suspension or exclusion from school who are more likely to end up on the pathway into serious violence.
This means the cohort is likely to include high proportions of pupils from recognised vulnerable groups (e.g. Children in Need, Looked After Children and those with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities).
We will primarily be focussing on pupils across the local authority in early secondary school (years 7,8 and 9), as this is before serious violence (such as weapon carrying) begins to peak. The strategic needs assessment will be used to identify the exact cohorts with the most need in each area.
The Sheffield SAFE Taskforce
The Taskforce is predominantly made up of secondary schools with some representation of engagement with primary. In pulling together the list of Taskforce members we have ensured that all secondary schools have at least one representative through the school itself or the MAT the school is part of.
The Taskforce needs to make strategic decisions which impact the whole local authority area, this means members should be leaders who are able to make strategic decisions. (e.g. CEOs of MATs, Headteachers of schools, designated safeguarding leads)
Alongside this, there are several other experts who should be part of the Taskforce to help ensure it is working collaboratively with existing structures and to provide support. Therefore we also have representation from the following organisations:
- Representative from the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) – VRUs (Violence Reduction Units) bring together the police, local government, health, and other key partners (including education) to tackle serious violence. They operate across a larger geographical footprint and invest in a wide range of violence prevention programmes. The VRU can help to provide expertise on crime and can help to ensure that funding is not used to duplicate existing intervention.
- Representatives from the local authority – The Local Authority is represented through both the Education Advisory and Access and Inclusion Teams.
- Representative from other education experts – the Taskforce also has representation from the Healthy Minds/Mental Health Support Team in the NHS.
The primary responsibility of the Taskforce is to manage effectively the funding to invest in evidence- based intreventions that tackle the education risk factors for involvement in serious violence. The Taskforce should help to improve support for at risk young people across the local authority. It is not a forum for discussing individual pupil level cases.
SAFE Project Team – Learn Sheffield Staff
Sai Patel – Commissioning Lead
Sam Dunker – Project Coordinator
Stephen Betts – Taskforce Chair
Thomas Edmonds – Project Administrator
Kate Wilkinson – Data Analyst
School/Academy Representatives
Andy Ireland – Stockbridge High School
TBC – Newfield School
Ellena Street – Sheffield College
TBC – Outwood Academy City
Jess Stevenson – UTC Olympic Park
Joanne Bradshaw – SSET
Joe Birkbeck – Westfield School
Kam Grewal-Joy – Meadowhead School
Kat Rhodes – Tapton School
Kathryn Proost – King Edward VII School
Linda Gooden – King Edward VII School
Lorraine Yates – Astrea Academy
Lynn Wood – TSAT
TBC – Sheffield Springs Academy
Rachel Smith – Fir Vale School
Scott Burnside – TSAT
Simon Winslow – Brigantia Learning Trust
Steve Davies – St Clare CMAT
Tuesday Rhodes – Sheffield Inclusion Centre
Yasmin Celik – Brigantia Learning Trust
Partners
David Cowley – Violence Reduction Unit
Graham Jones – Violence Reduction Unit
Mike Parker – Violence Reduction Unit
TBC – Sheffield City Council
Tim Armstrong – Sheffield City Council
Zoe Brownlie – Healthy Minds / MHST
DfE / Evaluation
Laura Bond – DfE
Clare Colvin – DfE
Stephen Goodwin – DfE
Mark Reid – RAND Evaluation Team
Interventions and Providers
The interventions chosen by the SAFE Taskforces should be used to tackle serious youth violence and be backed up by available evidence to show a tangible impact on reducing serious violence via one of the following outcomes:
- Reduce involvement in serious violence directly
- Improve social emotional regulation and well-being
- Improve attendance
- Improve behaviour in school and local area.
The Youth Endowment Fund are a “what works centre” on tackling serious violence who fund, support, and evaluate the most promising programmes to prevent young people becoming involved in serious violence.
They have produced a toolkit Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit which summaries the best available research on different approaches to preventing serious violence. The toolkit is intended to help organisations (such as the police, LA and schools) use evidence when making decisions about how best to keep young people safe from violence.
It provides insight on 17 different approaches (e.g. mentoring, social skills training and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)) and explains:
- What it is
- How effective it’s likely to be
- How confident we can be in the evidence of its impact
- Indicative costs
- Related resources and programmes
Using the foundation provided by the YEF toolkit, the DfE have provided some Evidence informed Interventions Guidance specifically oriented towards schools and the SAFE programme. In using this guidance the Taskforce have selected and approved the following four commercial providers onto our local SAFE Intervention framework.
These are the Golddigger Trust, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club Community Programme, Unravel and Adventure Expedition. Each of these provides a different mechanism of support for pupils, but all are focussed around the development of executive function and emotional regulation through either mentoring, social skills or therapeutic approaches (or indeed a combination of all three).
| Provider |
Résumé |
| Adventure Expeditions |
Adventure Expeditions (AE) uses outdoor education programmes to bring about positive change and development in young people to help them fulfil their potential. AE’s SAFE offering sets deliberate social skills-based development goals for each individual in conjunction with school teaching staff, based around SAFE aims.
Programmes last for one school day per week, across 12-week blocks. Weeks 1-6 take place at various locations in the Peak District are based around adventurous outdoor activities – individual development is expanded on with activities such as weaselling, rock climbing, abseiling, caving, Tyrolean-traverse building and geocaching and give opportunities to put skills into practice and embed/challenge learning in unfamiliar and often unpredictable environments. A further 6 weeks are spent in a woodland/forest setting. Activities include shelter building, building campfires, campfire cooking, and using tools (e.g. whittling knives, secateurs, bowsaws) to construct and create (rather than harm or destroy).
Activities are structured to include small group and 1:1 work with instructors acting as consistent role models and mentors. Attention is paid to building skills that extend beyond contact time with AE to stimulate wider application in school, home and community environments. For many young people, this will represent their first steps in different outdoor settings – the change of environment for learning and development can have a powerful impact and evidence is well documented in support of learning outside the classroom for behavioural, educational, engagement, motivation, self-confidence and self-resilience indicators. The proposed environments and activities can provide a useful initial 'hook' to engaging pupils and AE is keen to use this platform to facilitate new experiences and bring about positive individual change.
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| The Golddigger Trust |
This programme runs for the full academic year and consists of three phases, allowing a minimum of 1 hour of contact time per week for each student. The programme focuses on developing self-esteem, emotional regulation skills and executive function in an engaging and relatable way through a therapeutic youth work approach. Each programme is delivered by two dedicated youth workers, working with the cohort for the whole year. School cohorts available in multiples of 10.
Phase One focuses on students building trust with staff and peers and developing their emotional regulation skills, through interactive challenge-based activity sessions similar to the TV game show, The Cube. Each 1 hour session gives opportunities for the students to engage in a fun and relaxed way, in preparation for the next phase.
Phase Two consists of 1-1 goal-based mentoring for each student following the AUROUS 6-stage programme. Each 45–60-minute session supports the student to identify, plan towards and reach an achievable behaviour-based goal, whilst empowering them to use helpful strategies and build their self-worth.
In Phase Three, students join together again for a group work programme (1 hour per/week), looking at issues of self-esteem, healthy relationships with others, understanding their emotions and others' perspectives, and future aspirations.
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| Sheffield Wednesday Football Club Community Programme (SWFCCP) |
The SWFCCP SAFE Mentoring Intervention is a service for secondary schools in Sheffield, aiming to re-engage, support and empower young people aged 11 – 14 years old. The intervention will be structured around 1:1 and group mentoring for targeted young people referred by schools. Physical activity and issue-based workshops will run through the core of the provision, however mentors will be equipped with high levels of youth work competency and interventions will be structured around the characteristics and voice of the young person. Our objectives are to:
- Increase young people’s knowledge on how to live a healthy lifestyle.
- Reduce involvement in violence.
- Reduce unauthorised absence.
- Increase chances of attainment.
- Help young people to develop interpersonal and self-management skills.
- Promote youth voice.
- Help young people in setting short, medium terms goals.
We will aim to build resilience, motivation and raise aspirations. Activities will be designed to reduce negative behaviour and assist young people in gaining control of emotional wellbeing. The 1:1 mentoring process will be backed up by the team ethics instilled into the group work process, much of which will be guided and underpinned by football and sporting team centred principles and practice.
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| Unravel |
We offer statistically evidenced and valid relationship-based guidance which is tailored to client’s individual needs. Focus of this therapeutic relationship is to support social skills development and emotional regulation whilst improving executive and reflective functioning. The aim of all of our interventions is to activate best sense of self, healthier perspectives and improved emotional intelligence. Our model is designed to unravel key challenges around children’s behaviour, give them effective tools to make positive changes and empower to take charge of their brains and choices. We are very person-centred in our work and always strive to promote and develop individual’s self-esteem which underpin acceptance, confidence, emotional agility and resilience. Individually tailored therapeutic support is based on a range of neuroscience techniques:
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
- Positive Psychology
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Trauma informed communication
Our interventions all work to our mission statement which is: insight + action = positive change. This is based on the CBT model and reinforced by providing supportive action-based targets at the end of a session. CYP gently learn to do things differently as they begin to recognise that if they don’t do anything differently, nothing will change.
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Sheffield SAFE Taskforce Reports
For more information about the SAFE Taskforce, the work in the city or getting involved please contact at enquiries@learnsheffield.co.uk or call us on 0114 250 7417.
February 2024
Sheffield SAFE Taskforce: Annual Report Year 1
This report provides an overview of the Department for Education’s SAFE programme in Sheffield and covers the period from September 2022 to September 2023. The report includes information about the project and the Sheffield Taskforce, in addition to the process of identifying pupils and evidence-based interventions. It also describes the mechanisms used to measure the impact, our findings from the first year and how this learning is being used to impact on years two and three.
December 2023
Report to the Sheffield Children Safeguarding Partnership
The DfE recommend that SAFE Taskforces are overseen by their local Safeguarding Partnership.
The Sheffield Children Safeguarding Partnership agreed to take on this role in June 2022 in order to support:
Project evaluation, conflict resolution and the dissemination of learning as required.
This update includes the initial findings and learning from the year 1 (of 3) evaluation.
Contact Us
For more information about the SAFE Taskforce, the work in the city or getting involved please contact at enquiries@learnsheffield.co.uk or call us on 0114 250 7417.