Knife, gun and gang crime is wholly unacceptable and reducing it is a key priority for the government. Too many young lives are lost due to violent crimes.

Ending gang and youth violence: a cross-government report

The cross-government report, published on 1 November 2011, sets out detailed plans to make combat this issue:

• providing support to local areas to tackle the problem
• preventing young people from becoming involved in violence in the first place – with a new emphasis on early intervention and prevention
• offering pathways out of violence and the gang culture for young people, who want to break with the past
• punishment and enforcement to suppress the violence of those refusing to exit violent lifestyles
• partnership-working to join up the way local areas respond to gang and other youth violence

Communities against guns, gangs and knives fund

The communities against guns, gangs and knives (CAGGK) fund will provide £4 million for the voluntary and community sector over the next two years; £2 million will be available during 2011/12 and a further £2 million during 2012/13.

The funding criteria are focused on voluntary sector organisations working with young people at risk of involvement in gang, gun and knife crime or to support those who are involved to leave. Each successful organisation will receive up to £10,000 each per year to prevent the involvement of teenagers in gun, gang and knife crime.

The application process for the CAGGK fund has now closed. Applications are currently being assessed and applicants will be informed of the outcome shortly.

What we’re doing

Here at 2020 Dreams it is our goal to help prevent such violence and crimes through educational workshops. Talking to young people and finding out on a grass roots level the issues and problems people face on a daily basis is important. Making students feel comfortable at ease and able to talk to each other is very important.

Please visit our knife and gun crime workshops to find out more.

Or call us on 0800 689 9909 and we can help you.

An increasing number of young people & children seem to be resorting to knife carrying. Young children in inner-city areas particularly have to face knife crime in their neighbourhood directly. How can we reduce this & encourage young people to make good choices, rather than ones that will potentially blight the rest of their lives?

The Institute for Crime & Justice Studies did a great piece of research on knife crime & carrying amongst young people, & they found that the most effective method of reducing weapons carrying amongst young people on a local level was the use of education workshops. The key with 2020 Dreams Knife Crime Workshops are that they are effective because they are run by people that the children can identify with. This combined with a vast amount of interesting engaging content means that they are very successful in helping to raise awareness in children of a young age.

One of the findings of the study done by the ICJS was that Anti Knife Workshops had to be done by someone that young people could relate to, not an ‘authority figure’. Knife Crime Workshops are designed to be delivered to young people. If we are serious about getting the message out that knife carrying is not the answer to a young person’s personal safety then starting at an early age is key. Workshops delivered in school are great as they are in an environment where they are used to sitting & learning, so it is an extremely useful place to deliver Knife Crime Workshops.

How Our Knife Crime Workshops Help?

We believe that young people should realise the reality of crime and these workshops aim to do just that. The workshop begins with drama based role play by a professional expert facilitator to introduce the topic, and prepare the participants for a group discussion on the underlying issues relating to knife crime.

Participants are then encouraged to try to find practical solutions to deal with the issues. The workshop will consider conflict resolution and resisting peer pressure and techniques on how with deal comprising situations. In this interactive workshop participants will learn the key ingredients needed to create an atmosphere of zero tolerance towards crime in society today.

Our Knife Crime Workshops are design to be delivered in two ways:

Either a hard hitting workshop designed for people referral units or Young Offender Institutes bespoke to your organisations need. Or a general awareness Knife Crime Workshop designed for schools, Youth Centres and people who may be vulnerable to influences of crime. Alternatively our Knife Crime Workshops can be designed to meet the particular needs of your school or organisation.

Please contact us on 0800 689 9909 for more information on designing a personalised program.

Or alternatively visit our Gun & Knife Crime Workshop page to find out more.

Gun crime still makes up a small percentage of all crimes committed in the UK. Over the past few years, there have been a lot of stories in the news where teenagers have been killed by someone carrying a gun. To help stop these crimes we believe that educating children and making them aware will be a very important step.

Our Gun Crime Workshops offer participants the chance to learn about gun crime in depth, designed to support youths, parents, teachers, police, and other stake-holders to examine reasons for, and offer solutions to youth crime.

So what counts as gun crime?

Gun crime includes any crime that involves the use of a gun or firearm. This includes:

• a murder where the victim was shot
• any situation where a gun was fired, whether anyone was injured or not
• a robbery or burglary where the thieves carried a gun as a weapon
• intimidating people with a firearm
• carrying a gun that is banned, like a handgun
• carrying or using an imitation gun

Is there really a gun problem in the UK?

Incidents involving guns make up less than one per cent of the total number of crimes committed in the UK every year.

What is worrying is the relatively large number of young people who say they carry real or fake handguns to protect themselves. In fact you’re more likely to be a victim of gun crime if you carry a gun yourself.

How Our Gun Crime Workshops Help?

We believe that young people should realise the reality of crime and these workshops aim to do just that. The workshop begins with drama based role play by a professional expert facilitator to introduce the topic, and prepare the participants for a group discussion on the underlying issues relating to gun and knife crime.

Participants are then encouraged to try to find practical solutions to deal with the issues. The workshop will consider conflict resolution and resisting peer pressure and techniques on how with deal comprising situations.. In this interactive workshop participants will learn the key ingredients needed to create an atmosphere of zero tolerance towards crime in society today.

Our Gun Crime workshops are design to be delivered in two ways:

Either a hard hitting workshop designed for people referral units or Young Offender Institutes bespoke to your organisations need. Or a general awareness Gun Crime workshop designed for schools, Youth Centres and people who may be vulnerable to influences of crime. Alternatively our Gun Crime Workshops can be designed to meet the particular needs of your school or organisation.

Please contact us on 0800 689 9909 for more information on designing a personalised program.

Or alternatively visit our Gun & Knife Crime Workshop page to find out more.

The frequent tragic news headlines involving young people and crime has significantly increased the fear of Youth crime and cemented the fact that more needs to be done in tackling youth crime. Young people are carrying knives and guns without thinking about the consequences, which can include being scarred for life, maimed or even killed.

69 teenagers are victims of knife crime every week in London and nearly half of all murders are carried out with a knife. Crime Stoppers statistics.

Our  drama based workshops can be customised to look at this disturbing emergence of crime by using interactive learning to engage participants.

Our Knife and Gun is a bespoke workshop that is designed to meet the needs of your organisations and can be customised to focus on various topics below to meet your needs.

• To help young people develop an awareness of crime and its consequences
• To help young people gain a greater respect and understanding for others
• To increase awareness about being responsible for one’s own actions
• To make young people more aware that the law is there to protect as well as to punish
• To build a greater understanding of Citizenship within young people
• To help young people recognise the difference between real prison life and that portrayed in TV dramas
• To show effects of different drugs, legal and illegal, and the link between drugs and crime
• Increase awareness about the effects and impact of crime upon victims and the community
• To help young people stay safe, free from crime and anti-social behaviour
• Seek to discourage the vulnerable young from making a mistake that could ruin their adult lives
• Effects of anti-social behaviour in local communities
• To promote the value of adopting positive lifestyles
• Children as young as six are being introduced to gang culture by seeing their brothers with knives and guns. This is the chilling reality.

Please visit our knife and gun crime workshops to find out more.

Or call us on 0800 689 9909 and we can help you.