Before An Incident

BEFORE AN
INCIDENT

Working in partnership to respond effectively to a serious violence incident can only happen if processes, procedures and relationships are in place well before an incident happens.

If you need to quickly mobilise a team of people in response to an incident, you need to already know who you will involve and why, and everybody needs to understand their role.

Planning

The key to responding to an incident is to plan and prepare - both individually and collectively. It is particularly important that responses are put in place , in order to ensure the safety of your communities, stem the flow of incorrect information, support those who need it, reduce the risk of reactive or retributive behaviour, implement longer-term preventative measures and manage the increased risk around related activities (anniversaries, judicial proceedings etc).

While a joint response must be developed with the specific details of the incident in mind, understanding the steps you might go through and the people who you might engage with is key. So having a general incident plan in place, appropriate to your role, will help you quickly mobilise the people you need toin order to respond in the most effective way. Good planning for the aftermath of an incident makes it easier for people to respond effectively at a time when resilience or confidence may be low.

Incident planning

To enable you to respond to a serious violence incident, you may want to develop a local checklist. All CSPs have policies and procedures that work really well in responding to an incident, and there’s no single approach that should be followed, as the details of the incident and the services available may vary. Therefore, it may be useful to identify the key steps that relate to your specific location. Below is an example of how you might want to do this.

Alongside this, it is important that you ensure that you have communication networks in place, social media processes in place, cross-borough networks and working agreements inplace, details for all local trauma/healthand support.

Working in partnership to respond effectively to a serious violence incident can only happen if processes, procedures and relationships are in place well before an incident happens. If you need to quickly mobilise a team of people in response to an incident, you need to already know who you will involve and why, and everybody needs tounderstand their role.

CRITICAL
INCIDENT
MANAGEMENT
-
PREPARATION

EXAMPLE
INCIDENT
PROTOCOL

CRITICAL
INCIDENT
MANAGEMENT
-
PREPARATION

SERIOUS
VIOLENCE
INCIDENT
CHECKLIST
EXAMPLE

Establishing relationships

To effectively respond to an incidence of violence, you will need to ensure that you have appropriate relationships in place prior to any incident taking place. These local relationships will likely be beneficial acrossyour wider work.

In establishing these relationships, and working with them in responding to an incident, the most important thing to ensure is that you are engaging with the right people. If you want community members on a forum, make sure they are representative of the group the forum is representing.

There are many things you can do to ensure that you have the right people involved. Apart from establishing relationship across a range of statutory bodies and services, it is important to be proactive, to invite those from a wide range of organisations/backgrounds to get involved.

The Violence Reduction Unit is committed to working closely with a wide range of partners, including community groups and grassroots organisations, whose work spans a range of issues from youth violence to social exclusion. They will be a great contact for widening community engagement. Click here to read more about the VRU’s commitment to communities.

VIOLENCE
REDUCTION
UNIT
APPROACH TO
COMMUNITY

BEST
PRACTICE
PRINCIPLES
FOR
ENGAGEMENT

AIMS OF
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT

Aims of Community Engagement

• Disseminate information on all aspects of the decision and policy making processes with a focus on crime

• Support community and voluntary sector representation on all local strategic boards through the election of representatives to sit on the boards.

• Promote collaboration and partnership between relevant statutory and non-statutory agencies on is-sues with a focus on crime

• Support the voluntary sector to identify unmet needs and to campaign for the provision of appropriate services.

• Promote the common interests of voluntary and community organisations as both providers and advocates

• Provide a voice for the voluntary and community sector

• Provide opportunities for networking, information sharing and support for member organisations and groups

• Ensure that community and service user interests are represented and heard in the statutory and voluntary groups

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EXAMPLE
INFORMATION
SHARING
PROTOCOL

INFORMATION SHARING
FOR
COMMUNITY
SAFETY

VIOLENCE
REDUCTION
UNIT