Anti-Social Behaviour Training Project

Thematic Work Area: Reducing the impact of Anti-Social Behaviour

What was the need?

Under the banner of Safer North Devon (SND) statutory agencies are signed up to delivering a partnership response to the growing problem of anti-social behaviour (ASB) in our neighbourhoods. For some, this is core business and they are expected to adopt a general and proportionate response using the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2006 e.g. Police. For others this is more complex and has its own legislative implications as to how they should respond e.g. Registered Social Landlords (R.S.L.’s) and Councils and did not form part of their existing core business.

Commonly, all partners agree that we must all take responsibility for using powers available to us to reduce the impact of ASB on our local communities. For some of our partners, these relatively new powers bring new challenges with more staff becoming involved and processes and practices needing to be revised.

In Northern Devon all agencies have adopted the common use of the Devon and Cornwall ASB Escalation Process. This ensures we all work together to deliver proportionate use of the legislation, adopting interventions around diversions and prevention measures, issuing warning letters, acceptable behaviour contracts (ABC’s) and ultimately Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBO’s) should all earlier interventions fail.

However, an increase in workload and reporting, staff turnover and the ever changing legislative environment has made it difficult to up-skill all relevant staff and maintain the required levels of knowledge. This means that we are exposed with a limited number of officers holding all the expertise, which inhibits service delivery and ultimately puts agencies at risk.

No formal training exists for partners, although the ASB Officer for Safer North Devon has been training as required for the past 2 years. This has been difficult to sustain and has been a reactive process rather than a process of proactive planed curriculum development.

Safer North Devon facilitates an ASB Steering group, which directs our policy, projects and delivery. This group commissioned the development of an ASB Training Programme for all partners, requesting this be in place for April 2009.

The objectives were:

 To provide a minimum standard of content available for all
 To provide expert training for those who need it (lead officers, ASB single points of contact and nominated front line staff)
 To provide a framework for enhanced learning, which will lead to better and more consistent use of the ASB escalation process and legislative tools.
 To explore the potential to share the ASB curriculum as best practice across Devon.

What have we done?

SND secured a government grant to deliver this new service. Safer Stronger Communities Funding was made available to SND officers under the ASB thematic delivery plan through the Safer Devon Partnership.

SND sought advice from partner agency training officers and researched existing content and courses available on ASB. We worked directly with the North Devon Council training manager on scoping the project, providing a brief and commissioning two separate training agencies to deliver on our needs. NDC had worked with both agencies in the past and they had a track record of successful content development and delivery.

A curriculum was developed to meet the needs of all agencies from basic knowledge to expert understanding. The introductory modules allow an hour of training to establish what is ASB, who is responsible to our communities and how we respond. The specialist modules include the use of “Crack House Closure” notices, Criminal ASBO applications and writing Civil ASBO’s.

Rollout of the plan has been aligned to the development of ASB Single Points of Contact (SPOCs) in each partner agency. SPOCs are the lead officer for each agency on ASB and will undertake the highest relevant level of training available and will train on to their peers and partners using the tools provided under this project.

Every SPOC has been offered a train the trainer course to equip them to deliver complex messages around ASB and to effectively use the training tools on offer.

They have all been trained on the content developed and had the opportunity to practice delivery amongst their fellow SPOCs.

From June 2009, all partners of SND will offer this new ASB training content. All agencies have signed a training charter, which demonstrates an ongoing intent to support the development, delivery and sustainability of this ASB training programme.

SND will carry out an annual review of the content and delivery, and amend the programme as required.

What are the results of our work?

It’s too early to tell how the training content has enhanced our local response to ASB. The initial feedback is that:

 It’s good to know that the training we have received is consistent for all agencies
 It’s been important to have the right tools to refer to and to use to teach others
 It’s been good to have chance to meet fellow SPOCs and share our knowledge and ask our questions
 It makes me feel part of a team, and improved my confidence levels in dealing with complex ASB cases.