Camden set to host biggest ever Youth Safety Fortnight
Camden Council is set to launch its next Youth Safety Fortnight with a series of events and activities for children, young people, parents, carers and professionals, which will raise awareness of what is being done locally to keep young residents safe – as well as helping to equip young people and the community to stay safe.
Running from 27 June to 10 July, this year’s Youth Safety Fortnight will be the biggest and best event so far with about 100 events taking place across the borough.
The themes of this year’s Youth Safety Fortnight are youth exploitation, keeping young people safe, and young women and girls’ safety, with a range of events and activities, both face to face and online, based on these themes.
Event highlights include Camden Youth Shout Out on 30 June, which is led by the Camden Youth Council and will look into diversity in policing and justice, feminism and sex education; sporting activities hosted by local youth and sports clubs; youth safety, youth exploitation and trauma awareness workshops for young people, parents and professionals; art installations, activities and sessions to promote the safety of young women and girls. Activities and events are hosted by the voluntary sector, the Council, the police, local health partners and leading experts in their fields.
The winners of Camden’s annual Youth Safety Multi-Media Competition, which encouraged students to get creative by producing a range of media projects based on the theme ‘keeping children and young people in Camden safe’ will also be announced on 29 June.
Our priority as a Council is to make Camden a place where young people feel safe and can flourish. We’re hosting the borough’s third Youth Safety Fortnight to speak directly to communities about issues they may be facing, as well as to hear first-hand from our young residents on how we can further support them.
This is set to be our biggest and best Youth Safety event yet, so I’d encourage as many young people, parents and carers as possible to get involved.
View the Youth Safety Fortnight 2022 programme of events and activities.
This year, the Camden Youth Safety Steering Group, which is Co-Chaired by Local MP Keir Starmer and former Camden Councillor Abdul Hai OBE, also commissioned an independent evaluation from the London Metropolitan University to look at how we can take further action to keep young people safe.
The report recognised the achievements of the youth safety work in Camden, which is being led by the Council in partnership with schools, Camden Learning, voluntary organisations, local health bodies, the police and partners and sets out a series of recommendations for further work to help ensure young people in Camden stay and feel safe.
Work in this area was also recognised in the recent Ofsted report on Camden children's services, in which services were judged to be Outstanding.
Commenting on the report, Cllr Francis added: “Alongside our partners, I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far to reduce violence affecting young people and to create more opportunities for them, but there is always more we can do. I’m pleased the report recognised the work we’ve done so far to protect our young people, and we will be working to implement the recommendations to ensure we can continue to support our young people and do everything we can to keep them safe.”
You can read the youth safety evaluation report here
Check out our full programme of events for Youth Safety Fortnight
For further information or to contact us, please email: [email protected] or visit camden.gov.uk/youthsafetytaskforce