We’re here to help!
We’re passionate about support and we’re here to help any young person who has been affected by crime in Gwent.
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Our main aim is to support young people to achieve their goals and potential following their experiences, reducing the impact on their lives, enhance their mental health and wellbeing, increase their feelings of safety and security and improve their ability to deal with what happened to them.
What is the project?
We’ve been funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent to provide support to any young victim, survivor or witness of crime in the Gwent Police force area, covering the 5 Local Authorities of Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen.
Who can access support?
Any young person affected by crime or antisocial behaviour can access support from our specialist team based in Connect Gwent, the Gwent multi-agency victim service.
We can’t take away their negative experience, but we hope we can help them learn to deal with them and try to prevent any long-term impact these might otherwise have.
We absolutely believe that a young person must be at the centre of all and any support and the services developed around them to help them reach their goals and achieve their desired outcomes. We also truly believe that young people have autonomy and rights, and are the experts in their own experiences.
We feel privileged to be invited by young people to help them develop and navigate their own paths, and we are committed to doing the best we can to help them succeed.
How will the young person be supported?
We know that experiences of crime can vary, and the impact can often be harder for young people to cope with. We also know that sometimes young people need to access support very differently to adults, so we make sure that we offer a range of services and communication methods that best suit the individual.
Our team will work with young people directly to help them develop individual, tailored support packages, identify goals and achieve positive outcomes. Through a range of tools and techniques, we can support young people to build confidence, develop resilience, learn positive coping strategies, build social connections, enhance their self-esteem, feel happier, healthier and more prepared for their future, and achieve other goals they set.
Our team will work with young people to help them develop a plan based on what’s important to them and provide support to achieve it through:
– Enhanced Emotional Support
– Listening and Reassurance
– Information
– Signposting to other specialist agencies
– Practical Support
– Safety Advice
– Advocacy
– or in any way that helps young people achieve the best outcome.
What can a young person get help with?
What matters and what would make a difference to the life of any young person we work with is absolutely at the heart of everything we do.
We encourage young people to tell us what matters to them, and we’ll work hard to support them in the best way we can. If we can’t do something or we’re not the best service to support them, we’ll try our hardest to find the most appropriate and helpful agency to support them. The means that we might help young people with lots of areas of their lives such as:
– Home and Family
– Friends and social connections
– Healthy relationships
– Online safety
– Shelter and accommodation
– Budgeting and finance
– Physical health, mental health and wellbeing
– School and education
– Behaviours and coping with negative experiences
– and anything that has an impact on their life at the time.
How can a request support for a young person?
It’s easy. Just complete our quick online referral form, and we’ll contact the young person or their guardian to discuss support. You will be notified when we have received the details. If you haven’t received email confirmation, please contact us. Professionals referring young people to our services will receive notification emails throughout the intake process. These will stop once support has been discussed and agreed.