This webpage is intended as a reference for staff and partner organisations. The OPCC have responded to the Identified need to extend the reach and engagement of the organisation to young people to reinforce the Government messaging and restrictions for COVID-19.
Young people may be less likely to understand and/or comply with restrictions in place to mitigate risks of COVID-19 based on:
- Their understanding that the impact/risk of COVID-19 is less on young people,
- Their ability to assess risk may be less developed,
- Their willingness to comply with authority may be less,
- They don’t recognise the transferred risk,
- Normal support mechanisms may no longer be in place (school, college, sports provision etc.)
We recognise three phases to this work; response, resilience and recovery. The short-term objective is to enable communication that addresses the needs of young people in response to the crisis. This will then open up channels that enable support to build resilience and support during recovery.
The PCC, through all his policies and the work of the Violence Reduction Unit seeks to ensure that the risks around violence are mitigated by increasing protective factors and reducing risk factors; current methods for both approaches have predominantly been through physical engagement, and a digital/remote offering is under-developed – the risks around violence/exploitation for young people are therefore not able to be mitigated in previously adopted ways.
What we want to achieve: To ensure a relevant message reaches young people in a format/medium they can understand, via messengers which enable them to engage, with an avenue to feedback concerns. To view information on the COVID-19 community communications Projects see here (link to press release on two commissioned programmes.)
This aims to achieve greater compliance with restrictions and reduce risk of violence.
We have compiled a list of resources which we hope you will find useful. Find out more by clicking the links below
Building Resilience
Take the Temperature Report- National Youth Trends
Mental Health
Recovery
