Funding awarded across the Thames Valley region to prevent violence.
New funding has been made available to help tackle serious violence and knife crime across Milton Keynes and the Thames Valley region.
The money, totalling £1.8 million and made up of two grants, the Serious Violence Duty Grant and the Violence Reduction Unit Grant, will be administered by Matthew Barber, Police and Crime Commissioner, to local partners to support Thames Valley communities.
This multi-agency approach involves local authorities, health, education, policing, third sector organisations, and many more, all working together to understand the root causes of serious violence and focussing on place-based problem solving in order to address them.
“There is no single solution to preventing serious violence,” said Matthew Barber. “Its impact on individuals and communities can be devastating and we continue to work collaboratively as part of the Violence Prevention Partnership to try to address root causes and support those most at risk.
“The funding awarded to partners across the Thames Valley aims to deliver against our shared goal to reduce violence in our communities and stop our young people being drawn into offending.
“Funding will extend the delivery of some existing projects as well as test new approaches. I am pleased that the majority of councils have accepted funding to implement new Focused Diversion activity for young people in their areas, the output and learning from which will be shared across the Thames Valley to help inform future activity.”
Of the awards, around £210,000 has been made available to extend the delivery of the Operation Deter Youth programme for under 18s to the end of March 2026. It uses fast-tracked processes to increase the levels of engagement children have with youth justice services, breaking the cycle of offending, and improving future safeguarding opportunities by determining if they are being exploited.
And £225,000 is available to Thames Valley Police to deliver a Focused Deterrence programme via Harm Reduction Units for high harm, habitual knife carriers that will utilise a range of tactical options to encourage people to change their behaviour.
The remainder of the Home Office funding will be used to improve the sharing of information between partners to better support young people at risk and to evaluate the programmes to understand their impact in tackling and reducing serious violence in communities.
