Next Silvertown Session 28th Nov on Youth and the Community

Youth in the Community

This Silvertown Session invites you to debate Youth in the Community from a range of viewpoints, including strategies for youth empowerment, critical thinking on youth crime prevention practice and neighbourhood policing, as well as local perspectives from community leaders on youth safety. We will also hear from Newman Council about the Mayor’s Youth Safety Board and invite you to have your say on these policies.

Join the Debate

Youth culture can play an incredibly important role in sustaining and reinventing the local community. Youth can bring together and refresh communities.

In the past decade, local communities have seen funding cuts to many youth services and crime prevention agencies supposed to help young people flourish and maintain stability in the community. The current rise in youth related violence is arguably a symptom of this decline leaving all of the community feeling increasingly unsafe.

Can this decline be reversed? There are some encouraging signs. The Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, has ‘made youth safety a major priority’ in the borough. In 2018 she announced the launch of Youth Citizen Assemblies, enhanced activities and transformed services, including doubling the number of youth hubs. The local authority says they are ‘listening to… young people about their experiences living in the borough,’ asking them what they need to make them feel safe.

Come and join the debate on 28^th November

Speakers

Prof William ‘Lez’ Henry (AKA British Reggae Deejay Lezlee Lyrix) was born in Lewisham, of Jamaican Parentage. He is a writer, poet and community activist. Lez has lectured nationally and internationally, featured in numerous documentaries and current affairs television and radio programmes and have written and published extensively on many of the concerns of the African Diaspora in the UK.

Dr Anthony Gunter, Principal Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of East London and author of Race, Gangs and Violence: Policy, Prevention and Policing (2017), and Black Youth ‘Road Culture and Badness in an East London Neighbourhood (2010). He worked as a community and youth work practitioner for many years prior to entering academia.

Frances Winter is a Senior Policy Officer at the London Borough of Newham, where she focuses on policy relating to children and young people, and has this year been supporting the Mayor of Newham’s Youth Safety Board

Programme

Starts 7pm with food & drink in main hall

Throughout the programme there will be a creche and activities activities for young people provided by Fight for a Peace, RDLAC and the Woodcraft Folk.

Talks begin in main hall

7.30pm Introduction to Silvertown Sessions (Andrew Branch and Joy Caron-Canter) 5mins

7.35pm Chair’s introductions (Tony Sampson)

7.40pm Guest speaker. Prof Lez Henry – Goal Models

8.05pm Q&A

Panel talks

8.10pm – Frances Winter (Newham Council) on the Mayor’s Youth Safety Board)

8.20pm Dr Anthony Gunter (UEL)

8.30pm short intros by youth work panel

Led by Joy Caron-Canter (RDLAC)

8.40pm Q&A all

8.50pm Break – with food, drink with demonstration by Fight for Peace