Parents demand action on 'daily threat to their children

Concerned parents have set up a petition calling for action to make their children safe. I have reproduced it here for your information and not as an endorsement of everything that it says.

It can be signed HERE

To: Dawn Butler MP, Tulip Siddiq MP, Barry Gardiner MP, Councillor Mili Patel, Councillor Matt Kelcher, Councillor Tom Miller

Safer kids - Radical increase in muggings and violent assault on children in our neighbourhood

We demand immediate solutions to the daily threat our children face through:

- More police/security details patrolling the Kensal Green, Kensal Rise, Queens Park and Harlesden area, especially at key points in the day

- More CCTV in key locations 

- The creation of a positive action network consisting of schools, residents and local businesses that raises awareness and encourages positive, social behaviour within the community.

We also demand long-term solutions such as investment in local youth centres and helping the youth committing these crimes to become part of the community, rather than fighting against it.

Why is this important?

We the undersigned residents of Brent demand our streets be made safe for our children. We are writing to you to demand you immediately address the radical increase in muggings and assaults on children in our local area. Lawlessness is rampant and impunity is now rife in our neighbourhood. 

Our streets feel like the Wild West - anything goes, and no one can do a thing about it.

Muggings and assaults on children are now occurring daily, often between 2pm and 7pm on the peripheries of schools, in parks and around the Chamberlayne Rd area. These crimes are committed by youth, at times in balaclavas, often using knives, sometimes using steel bars as a threat, other times using direct violent assault - and all this in broad daylight. 

In the cases where adults have tried to intervene, they too have been violently assaulted. One parent was recently punched in the head in Roundwood Park numerous times in front of his son, and another parent had a plank of wood smashed into his face, losing several teeth in the Queens Park area - also in front of his children. 

Sadly, many cases go unreported as the victims are fearful if they tell, they could be putting themselves in more danger. Moreover, parents at times fear nothing will be done as the police rarely turn up, or if they do it's 30 minutes late, when the perpetrators are long gone.

At an age when our children should be cherishing a newfound independence, they now have to fear for their safety. They must ask themselves: Will I be attacked on the way home from school today? Is it safe to take my phone? Do I have to walk in a big group to be safe? What should I do if I get assaulted? Will they knife me? 

No child should have to ask him or herself these questions. We want our children to:

- be able to walk to school and home from it
- go the the park/skatepark
- walk to a friend's house
- go to the corner shop
- catch a bus/ the tube etc...

without having to worry that they will be assaulted or mugged. 

The effect of daily fear in these young minds, if not addressed, is likely to lead to a dramatic increase in anxiety, depression and isolation in our local community.

May we remind you, in 1991 the UK signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, one of the nine core UN human rights treaties. The CRC protects the rights of children in all areas of their life, including their rights to "freedom from violence, abuse and neglect". 

It is tragic that almost three decades later, in this supposedly civilised society, our children are not protected from violence or abuse in their very own neighbourhood.

It is tragic, that due to austerity, our society is now one in which crime is rampant, impunity rife and our children - our future - are the ones having to suffer the devastating consequences. 

It is tragic that they must now live in fear in their own community. 

We demand you make our streets safe for our children. We demand action and we demand it now.

Brent youth stood up to Youth Centre cuts in 2011 under the Anne John administration see LINK butopposition to Brent youth centre closures in 2015-16 was muted LINK except for the spirited struggle over Stonebridge Adventure Playground LINK

In 2017 Green Party London Assembly Member, Sian Berry (now a London Mayoral candidate) reported on the devastating impact of youth service cuts across London. LINK

Pride of Brent Youth Awards nomination deadline extended to June 23rd

From Brent Council

The deadline for nominations for the Pride of Brent Youth Awards has been extended to Sunday 23 June 2019.

Nominate a young person today for the Pride of Brent Youth Awards!!! Use the link below to download a nomination form.

Pride of Brent Youth Awards 2019

Nominations are now open for the 2019 Pride of Brent Youth Awards. The Pride of Brent Youth Awards aim to celebrate the achievements of our young people across Brent. We want to recognise young people who try hard to make a difference in their community and those who often put others before themselves. We would like you to nominate those young people who make Brent a better place to live and work in 2019.

You know who they are: they’re the young people who have excelled often overcoming their own personal difficulties to do so. They are the young people who lead by example and who make time to help others in their community.

These young people come from all walks of life, from different backgrounds, ages and cultures. The positive impact they make can be seen throughout life in Brent.

Nominate a young person today and help us celebrate the young people who really do put the Pride in Brent.

Nominations must be received at the Civic Centre either in electronic or hard copy by Sunday 23 June 2019.

There will be a Pride of Brent Youth Awards ceremony taking place on Saturday 20 July 2019 here in Brent Civic Centre.

Access the nomination forms and guidance using the link below or go to the front page of the Brent Council website.

https://www.brent.gov.uk/your-community/pride-of-brent-youth-awards-2019/

If you have any questions, please email us - PrideofBrentCommunityAwards@brent.gov.uk

Community organisation sets up school patrols after recent killings

This is an interesting development after the recent deaths of young people amidst much concern in the community about the need for action.

Brent Fights Back Against the Cuts - Join us on Tuesday

Youth, children, carers, environment hit by Brent Council cut proposals

Brent Council has now published its draft proposals for cuts in services that will be considered by the Cabinet on Monday December 15th.  The document is available HERE 

I advise readers to read the whole document as it is impossible to prove the full detail here. Please post comments drawing attention to anything I have over-looked or to outline its impact on staff or service users.

This is the beginning of the budget making process.  See side panel for  the timetable.

The cuts are divided up into four categories:

• Stopping Services Completely
• Leverage in Resources and Income
• Building Independence and Community Resilience
• Driving Organisational Efficiency

The document needs careful study but the headlines are:

• Cessation of all Youth Services in the borough
• Close 10 of the 17 Children's Centres
• Close Welsh Harp Education Centre
• Cease all School Crossing Patrols
• Close Energy Solutions
• Cease funding for Stonebridge Adventure Playground
• Cease grant to Energy Solutions
• Close one Leisure Centre
• Gradually reduce grant to Tricycle Theatre to zero
• Reduce respite care by £450,000
• Reduce Day Care by up to 40%
• Reduce Connexions to the minimum
• End rough sleepers service
• No litter clearing in residential roads, no pavement mechanical sweepers, no weekend litter service in parks
• Reduce face to face customers service at Civic Centre to 2 days a week by appointment

One of the problems in reading this report is the avoidance of the word cuts and the selling of them in some cases as advantageous for service users. It would be much better to admit that they are severe cuts and are going to seriously affect service users. The pretence feeds into the Coalition's justification for cuts and claims of local government profligacy.

How many different ways can you avoid saying cuts?

Under the 'Organisational Efficiency' heading there are are a number strategies that could worsen services or undermine the working conditions of employees.

These include in Adult and Social Care The report's terminology):

• Negotiate with Residential and Nursing Care providers to ensure value for money
• Reduce service user and carer engagement to a minimum
• Close New Millennium and Kingsbury Resource Day Centres
• Change Tudor Garden Residential Home to Supported Living accommodation
• Increasing the number of Direct Payment personal care assistants
• 'Transforming' the Mental Health Social Care model to save £750k
• Reduce social work staff in Adult Social Care by 20% over two years
• Reduce Learning and Development to statutory minimum

In Children and Young People

• Early Years - review future resource requirements in general workforce budgets
• Reduce support and delivery costs of the Youth Offending Team
• Reduce cost of Special Educational Needs assessments by restructuring staff
• Integrate Children's Information Service with other customer services - reduction of 50%
• Children's placements - includes some Looked After children currently in residential placement moved to independent foster agencies
• Children with disabilities -end summer playscheme, more direct payments, reduce overall level of support
• Reduce managerial posts in Children's Social Care

Environment and Neighbourhood Services

• Transfer management of libraries to an established library trust resulting in business rates savings
• Reduce library book stock to CIPFA bench-marked average
• Delete Environment Projects and Policy Team
• Stop nearly all Sports Development work including school holiday programmes
• Brent Transport Services - end the employment of in-house drivers and attendants
• Reduce the Emergency Planning Team by one post - will require arrangement with another borough to maintain 24/7 coverage 
• Review regulatory services  and consider shared services with another borough

Regeneration and Growth

•  Reduce the number of Housing Options Officer posts by 4, over a two year period from 2016/17
•  Proposals will be developed for increased income from the Civic Centre. The additional income assumed from 16/17 onwards assumes that an additional floor being made available and a tenant found to occupy the space on a commercial basis from 2016.

Human Resources

• It is proposed  to carry out a major reconfiguration of the HR service in 2015/16 saving £1.4m by 2016/17. This will result in the merging of some areas in order to reduce the number of managers required in the new structure.  It is the intention to devolve responsibility for some existing activities undertaken by the Learning and Development team to HR Managers.  Other activities will be accommodated by a new performance team with a broader remit which will include resourcing, workforce development, policy and projects.
•  In addition it is proposed to cap the existing trade union facilities time allocation awarded to GMB and Unison to a maximum of 1 x PO1 post per trade union, to move the occupational health service inhouse saving £60k and reduce the learning and development budget by £67k. In year 2016/17 further reductions in staffing can be potentially achieved through shared service arrangements within payroll, pensions, HR management information and recruitment.

This marks the end of Brent Council as we know it. Surely this is the tipping point for local councils? It is no longer a 'dented shield' approach to the cuts but throwing down the shield and running into the enemies' swords.

Butt suggests combined West London Authority as 40% central staffing cuts sought in Brent budget

The  Report for the First Reading Debate on the Council Budget LINK was up on the Council website by 23.45 last night. It includes a section on the Borough Plan Consultation which is fast work as the consultation only closed at 5pm yesterday.

Full Council was changed from November 17th to December 8th ostensibly to enable a report on the Borough Plan to be made.

The report states (4.3)

Between 16 September and 28 November the council, with its partners undertook a major consultation exercise to gather information on local people's views of:

• The area where they live
• Their aspirations for the future of the borough
• Their spending priorities, including those services they felt should be protected and areas where they felt we could do less
• What more they, the community group, or others could do to help build strong communities in Brent in the context of shrinking public resources 

Don't punish children for being children - sign this petition

Children at Play - Brueghel

Play England, of which I am a member, has been Tweeting supporters asking them to sign a petition to Norman Baker, Minister of State for Crime Prevention, over proposals to redefine anti-social behaviour. The petition was started by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice and their text and justification are self-explanatory.

There is enough discouragement of children's play as it is, as well as the temptation of screen entertainment. On the estate where I live children ride their assorted bikes and scooters around the close, have 'adventures' in the woodland that borders the estate, sometimes build their own shelters and dens as well as playing in the 'official' playground.

It is happy, healthy , safe and sociable but could be ended by one persistent complainant if this change goes through.

Here is the petition.

We call on the government to keep the existing definition of anti-social behaviour and not to broaden it to “conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance.”

Why is this important?

The government is changing the law and replacing ASBOs with Injunctions To Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNAs). While ASBOs targeted behaviour considered to “cause harassment, alarm or distress,” IPNAs will target conduct “capable of causing nuisance or annoyance”.

This new wording is too vague and casts the net far too wide. 

A ten year old could get an IPNA for doing something as harmless as playing football or climbing a tree, just because someone finds their behaviour annoying. And the punishments aren’t trivial either. An IPNA can lead to a prison sentence. 

Even the Association of Chief Police Officers, in giving evidence to MPs, warned that IPNAs “have the potential to be used inappropriately” and “unnecessarily criminalise” children.

Let’s tell the government we don’t want our children to be punished for being children.

Please sign our petition to Norman Baker, the Minister for Crime Prevention, asking him to keep the current definition of anti-social behaviour as causing harassment, alarm or distress.

You can sign the 38 degrees petition HERE

A House of Common research paper on the proposal can be found HERE

Youth tribute to striking teachers

ICTstrikeOUT from Mattia Pagura on Vimeo.

Youth Group: Home Office has to earn our respect and trust on stop and search

The consultation on Stop and Search closed on Tuesday. In this open letter to Theresa May, the Home Secretary  the STOPWATCH YOUTH GROUP tells her what stop and search really means to young people and why the consultation is only the beginning:


Dear Home Secretary,

Over the past three years, the StopWatch Youth Group has been campaigning, educating and advocating for changes to stop and search policy and practice and to improve the experiences of young people who come into contact with the police. Our aims have been to bring young people’s voices to policy debates, draw attention to the impact that stop and search has on our lives and empower our peers to deal with stop and search in a confident and informed way.

We welcome this public consultation, and that you have extended it to September, as a way to allow young people to respond but stop and search has been debated since before our members were even born.
We feel that;

• Stop and search is a tool for the police to harass and bully people. It rarely targets the crime and antisocial behaviour that actually harms communities.
• The powers can only be effective if employed as part of a wider crime fighting strategy - better recording can help with this and also encourages the police to consider how they are using the powers in practice.
• Stop and search targets play a perverse role in unnecessary street confrontations. Setting targets for higher arrest rates is going to lead to arrests that may not have been otherwise made.
• Young people are disproportionately stopped because we are easy targets; we do not know our rights and feel bullied by the police for the way we dress and because we are spending time on the street. We are treated with no respect; even when we ask the police about the reason for the stop they threaten to arrest us for not cooperating.
• Young people are repeatedly told we “fit a description” of a suspect and we feel we are given excuses by the police to justify their search. When the police are not being honest with us it is difficult to expect us to have confidence in them.
• Special youth groups should be set up and be given direct access to decision makers. Members from the community bringing action against the police should be supported through legal aid.

We currently lack faith in any official process and the questions you have asked in this survey are very biased, framing issues like “police bureaucracy” in a leading way. The Home Office needs to earn our respect and trust by ensuring that all stop and search powers - not just the narrow few being consulted on - are used in a much more intelligent, limited and fairer way, which we hope will be the end result of this consultation.

Yours sincerely,

StopWatch Youth Group

The Youth Group’s response is informed by our own opinions and experiences as well as discussions we have been having with young people across London and further afield. For their diverse contributions, we thank BASE- Octavia Foundation, Chelsea Academy, Fully Focused, George Monoux College, Hackney Quest, Kids Company, SE1 United, Skyway Blue Hut, Tower Hamlets Somali Youth Group, Waltham Forest Youth Independent Advisory Group, Youth Futures.

Read our responses to the Home Office survey here

 

Brent Central hopeful calls for Labour to embrace entrepreneurship

Sabina Khan promised something different as a candidate for the Brent Central Labour nomination and her  post on Progress on-Line LINK is certainly that.

Writing as a 'businesswoman and Labour activist' she calls for Labour to embrace entrepreneurship to harness the energy and creativity of youth:

There is another way to approach this. It involves making use of the third sector and social enterprise to promote collaborative working with communities to offer a practical vision for young people to engage in the world of work. By establishing a single national social enterprise operating across the country, funded and supported by central government, with the remit to help young entrepreneurs in turning their ideas, passion and creativity into businesses generating income and profit and a livelihood for them.

In addition this would support community groups to focus on developing young people as potential entrepreneurs. If a young teenage mother has a passion and talent for clothes and fashion, the community group should have the tools and support in place to spot the opportunity and encourage her to pursue her passion through the social enterprise. This government-backed enterprise would utilise the services of industry specialists, able to help and develop people and their ideas based on their own knowledge and experience of starting and running businesses. This last point is important as it needs to be a body seen to be competent and being able to ‘walk the walk’ in delivering in its goals.

It is often said that the best ideas and successful businesses arise during hard times.  Labour needs to position itself as the party of choice for young people by offering hope and a vehicle for their aspirations through innovative models such as this. By implementing this entrepreneurship scheme in conjunction with Labour's youth job guarantee, this will offer a real chance for everyone which breaks away from the idea that jobs are made only within the confines of existing businesses. Labour should commit itself to helping young people start their own businesses in this way.

There is only one comment so far on the article but the individual concerned seems to be well aware of Sabina's ambitions:

I can tell from your article you are a no non sense person and an Innovative Leader. Please take my word and do - become a politician. Britain needs people like you.

I felt the conviction, passion, attitude and strenght when I read your article and hope your idea can become a policy for the next Labour Goverment.

If I was eighteen years old or parents of an eighteen year old and you were my Member of Parliament candidate or your policy was on the table I will vote for you any day because I know you will make a difference to my life.