A message from Jon Drake, Director, Wales Violence Prevention Unit:
To inform the continued development of the Wales Violence Prevention Unit, earlier this year we commissioned the the Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moore’s University, to conduct our first Evaluation.
I am pleased to share the Year One Evaluation of the Wales Violence Prevention Unit. Evaluation is a key principle of the public health approach and is vital in ensuring our work provides the maximum benefit to the people of Wales.
As part of the Evaluation, the Unit was measured against five principles; collaboration; co-production; cooperation in data and intelligence sharing; counter-narrative development; and community consensus, through interviews with members and stakeholders, engagement events and a review of Wales Violence Prevention Unit documents.
The evaluation found that the Wales Violence Prevention Unit has begun to create system-level changes in violence prevention, encouraging organisations to focus upon violence prevention as a public health issue. This demonstrates how the work delivered by us and our partners is starting to transform the landscape of violence prevention in Wales.
Importantly, the Evaluation also set out key recommendations for how we can build on what has been a successful first year. We will be taking these recommendations forward with relevant partners in the coming weeks and months, to ensure we are delivering a whole system, multi-agency approach for violence prevention in Wales.
The Wales VPU has begun to create system-level changes in violence prevention, encouraging organisations to focus upon violence prevention as a public health issue. As a result, continuing this work should continue to build on early successes in preventing violence in Wales.
Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University Evaluation of the Wales Violence Prevention Unit
Collaboration is fundamental if we are to succeed in reducing and preventing violence. The importance of our approach is perfectly illustrated through the establishment of the Violence Prevention Unit by Commissioners and Chief Constables in Wales, building on the ‘Cardiff Model’ which for 25 years has provided a model for reducing violence by understanding patterns and causes instead of waiting for harm to happen and responding to events.
We’ve grasped the Home Office violence reduction initiative with enthusiasm, to focus on tackling violence in key areas of South Wales especially Cardiff and Swansea. This focussed action is making a real difference and I welcome the One Year Evaluation as an endorsement of the strong partnership working, innovation and evidence based approach which are already the established hallmarks of the Wales Violence Prevention Unit.
The Unit will continue to develop targeted activity and interventions across Wales, where the connections between all forms of violence are understood. The scourge of domestic violence and abuse is often in the background of street violence and vulnerability and has been shown to feed into organised crime. These issues are all connected, which makes it vital that we have a joined-up response.
Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales, Alun Michael