ADD2234 Support for Community Engagement on Serious Youth Violence

The Greater London Authority (GLA) Community Engagement team is working with voluntary and community organisations to address the root causes of serious youth violence in London. The team will be working with a consultant to coordinate a new programme of work to support community organisations to:

• Access funding available from the Mayor and the GLA (with an emphasis on the Young Londoner’s Fund)
• Build learning networks to share what works
• Bring together consortia to improve the chances of organisations accessing available funding

The immediate priority for this contract will be to work with the GLA Community Engagement Team to organise and deliver a series of workshops for the Young Londoners Fund in June 2018.

The workshops will focus on:

• Raising awareness of the Young Londoners Fund
• Supporting organisations to assess their suitability for the fund
• Providing practical guidance and support for potential applicants
• Signposting organisations that are not eligible to useful resources
• Linking up organisations in a locality and/or thematic way and allowing them to identify common issues and common ways of working
• Identifying key learnings and challenges for organisations that can be fed into the development of the second round of the Young Londoners fund grant process

This work is focused on addressing concerns which disproportionately affect BAME communities and the consultants will be asked to actively engage with these communities in carrying out the work.

1. key risks and issues

2. Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities

This work supports existing Mayoral priorities on social integration and community safety.

c) impact assessments and consultations.

The Community Engagement team hosted an emergency meeting for community and voluntary organisations working on serious youth violence at City Hall on 18^th April 2018.This meeting brought together over 150 organisations and stakeholders that focus on community and youth engagement, working with young people affected by or involved in serious youth violence. This consultation has informed this ADD, and since the meeting, we have been received numerous requests for follow up meetings and offers of engagement opportunities. As a result, the team has recognised the need for additional capacity to address this priority issue.

Approval is sought for expenditure of up to £30,000 on the procurement of a community engagement consultant and supporting resources, and a further £20,000 on engagement activities.

The total cost of £50,000 will be funded from the 2018-19 Director of Communities and Intelligence’s Minor Programme budget.