Innovative Calderdale projects to benefit from the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund

The funding was distributed by Tracy Brabin, the Mayor of West Yorkshire at an awards evening at Dewsbury Minster for her Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund.

A total of 39 groups collected cheques of up to £6000 at the event with the money being earmarked for innovative community safety projects across West Yorkshire.

Tracy Brabin, the Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “I was absolutely delighted to be able to launch this fund and allocate such a large amount of money to good causes, especially in such challenging times.

“One of my key pledges as the Mayor of West Yorkshire is to improve the safety of women and girls, and I am very pleased to see so many projects delivering in that area, making a real difference to people’s lives in our communities.

“This funding specifically supports voluntary, community groups, charities and partners, who are often at the frontline and don’t always get the recognition or support they deserve. I hope that these grants go some way to countering that.

“The fund is financed with monies recovered from criminals by West Yorkshire Police and Prosecutors under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), so a massive thank you to them for all their hard work and ensuring crime doesn’t pay.”

The projects will address at least one of the cross-cutting themes within the soon to be released Police and Crime Plan. Those themes are, keeping women and girls safe, diversity, equality, and inclusion, and early intervention and prevention.

Chief Constable John Robins QPM said: “Criminals often prey on and profit from the most vulnerable in society, so it is excellent to see money confiscated under POCA being reinvested back in those very communities. I am sure the money will really help these groups who do so much valuable work in their local area.”

Calderdale projects who have been awarded grants

Focus4Hope - £6000

Focus4Hope aims to provide primary care in the form of essential services, focusing on supporting local homeless, elderly, and vulnerable individuals and families within the community. This project will allow Focus4Hope to work in partnership with the local women's refugee and women's centre to take emergency referrals from statutory services and other local organisations to help support vulnerable women and their families flee domestic violence.

Focus4Hope will be the first and vital stage for these women leaving a dangerous and violent life and building a new safe one with their support and through referral to other organisations. They will help women set up home, take emergency refuge and provide a life line. They will support the community further by helping with benefits, advice with housing, mental health issues, food poverty and much more.

Invictus Wellbeing Foundation CIO - £6000

Invictus Wellbeing offer timely, accessible, and effective mental health and emotional wellbeing support and information to children and young people across West Yorkshire. This funding will provide them with two specialist workers who will work additional hours to ‘link work’ with vulnerable young people (12-17) identified through West Yorkshire Police, Liaison and Diversion, Social Care, Mental Health Services and more.

Link Working brings together low level mental health support, youth work and social prescribing to work 1-2-1 with young people. Their link workers will work with young people on a weekly

basis for 6-18 weeks and offer advice, support and guidance whilst also guiding and getting involved in activities which we know are great for improving wellbeing.

Halifax Street Angels - £5840.00

Halifax Street Angels is a charity working in Halifax Town Centre Friday and Saturday evenings to meet the needs of those who have become vulnerable on a night out. They work to meet the needs of those who have been spiked, are victims of crime or those who have had too much to drink and, as a consequence, are in need of support. They are also able to deliver emergency first aid, report violence, provide support to the homeless, arrange taxis, charge mobile phones and support those with mental health issues.

This funding will provide safeguarding training to team leaders, fund radios, spike prevention bottle caps, educational resources and website costs that allow for incident reporting.

Give it Your Max - £5580.00

Give It Your Max (GIYM)’s mission is to enhance the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable children aged 4-18 across the UK. They use tennis to tackle socio-cultural issues including poor mental health and self-esteem, high levels of obesity and inactivity, anti-social behaviour and gang crime as well as low levels of aspiration.

This funding will allow GIYM to run a year-long programme of early intervention and prevention activities that make Calderdale safer by providing disadvantaged and at-risk children/ young people with physical-and-mental wellbeing enhancing activities; diversionary after-school activities that reduce ASB; and a positive, structured alternative pathway from crime.

Sunnyvale Fishery and Outdoor Activity centre with West Yorkshire Police - £5910.00

Sunnyvale’s facility provides diversionary activities for young people from all backgrounds within the community of Calderdale. In partnership with West Yorkshire Police’s Early Intervention Team (EIT), they will engage with Key stage 2 children, providing a structured activity based programme incorporating outdoor activities and a crime awareness presentation.

All outdoor activities will be delivered by a local ALAA registered outdoor activity organisation, the presentations will be delivered by Police and will include violent crime, violence against Women and Girls and healthy relationships between young people – how to stay safe and how to seek help.

Their project will contribute to creating a safer community, not only by educating and empowering but by subsequently reducing the chances of young people offending or reoffending.

Their crime awareness sessions will engage young people in fun, positive activities, whilst providing them with the knowledge and skills to challenge the issues that face young people in their communities.

Verd de gris arts £5940.00

Verd de gris arts co-designs and delivers social impact project work with local people and communities - advocating for better engagement and participation in areas like mental and physical health and social cohesion. One Voice is made up of a diverse group of local women with lived experience of gender and cultural inequality, domestic and childhood abuse, poverty (monetary and opportunity), depression, and anxiety. Now empowered, they lead events that inspire others to believe they too can bring about change, that the power for change lies with those with lived experience.

This project will devise, publish and present an action plan to bring about change in relation to VAWG and lack of cultural diversity, with the issues they believe are the most important at the fore. Using the Hear Us! Action plan as a starting point, it will run local workshops with women/girls to raise awareness and build their confidence to start the journey of making changes. One Voice will then present the action plan to local stake holders at a ‘community conversation’ with and for local women, police, social services, council, prevent team, mayor, MPs and women’s organisations.

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