What Safer South Gloucestershire can offer you.

Safer South Gloucestershire is the Crime, Disorder, Drugs and Alcohol Reduction Partnership for the district. It is a partnership of the police, local authority, primary care trust, fire & rescue service, police authority, voluntary and community sector and businesses.

The Community Safety and Drugs Partnership, which supports Safer South Gloucestershire, is based at Parkman House, Lime Kiln Close, Stoke Gifford. It has two "arms", the Community Safety Team and the Drugs Action Team, but operates as a single unit. Currently, the team has a joint management structure. John Kelly, Community Safety Manager, manages the community safety team; David Warren, Drugs Action Team Manager, manages the drug action team.

The main services provided by the team are:

Anti-social behaviour

Philippa Isbell is our Anti-social Behaviour Co-ordinator and whilst she cannot investigate the incident itself, she can call a multi-agency Review Panel or an individual case conference. Philippa works closely with Howell David, a police officer who leads on Acceptable Behaviour Contracts. The team can provide advice about issues of anti-social behaviour and about the steps that may need to be taken.

Domestic Violence

Charlotte Badian, our domestic violence co-ordinator is a member of the South Gloucestershire Domestic Violence Forum and helps to develop and monitor its strategy and action plans. She provides information and advice to agencies and partners and attends the newly implemented case review panels for domestic violence. She will always be willing to provide information about domestic violence and to attend meetings; She does not provide a counselling service or provide a support service to survivors of domestic violence.

Hate Crime

The South Gloucestershire Partnership Against Hate Crime has just appointed a Development Officer - Maria Lopresti. She will develop and implement an Action Plan for the Partnership, working closely with the police and other agencies on all hate crime issues, whether they involve race, religion, sexuality, age, disability, gender or cultural. Maria is available to give help and advice, but is unable to investigate individual cases. However, she can forward complaints on to the relevant authorities if people do not wish to report directly to the police.

Drugs and Alcohol

The service for drug and alcohol users is provided through South Gloucestershire Drug and Alcohol Services (SGDAS). The services are provided through two centres, one at Tower Road North, Warmley and the other at North Road, Yate.

Our Young People's Team provide support to young people at Secondary school level who may have, or may develop, drug or alcohol habits. The team can respond within 24 hours with a package of support for the individual young person. Counselling can be provided on a one-to-one basis for young people who are using drugs or who want to come off drugs. They can also attend events for young people and provide training to organisations such as Connexions and young people's community groups such as youth groups or scouts.

Training

Our Training Officer, Ian Bowen, has a range of courses available from basic awareness of community safety and drugs issues through to more specialist courses for practitioners. Ian would be pleased to provide training to any community group on some of these issues.

CCTV

Andy Hichens, Senior Community Safety Officer leads the programme to install CCTV in our town and district centres. We also have small mobile units available that can be placed in areas that are experiencing problems. Andy also takes the lead on situational anti-social behaviour, which includes identifying areas, such as lanes or open spaces where there are problems and arranging for the installation of security fences, alley gates etc.

For further information or help, please contact 01454 868760.

The local community

Our ten local Community Safety Groups which are in Cadbury Heath, Filton, Hanham, Kingswood, Patchway, Staple Hill, The Stokes, Willsbridge, Winterbourne and Yate West; are key members of the Safer South Gloucestershire Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership. They help to deliver the Partnership's Crime, Disorder, Drugs and Alcohol Reduction Strategy in ways that are appropriate for their communities.

Local Community Safety Groups are multi-agency groups with membership from the police, primary care trust, fire & rescue service, local residents, South Gloucestershire Council and Town/Parish Councils.

The next two years are going to be exciting ones for the Groups. Safer South Gloucestershire has agreed to widen its remit. It will shortly be renamed the "Safer and Stronger Communities Partnership" so that it will become responsible for delivering the Safer and Stronger . Communities block of the Local Area Agreement. For local Community Safety Groups this mean that they can initiate or support projects that will help to make their communities stronger and more inclusive as well as projects that make the safer by reducing crime and disorder.

All the Groups would welcome the involvement of more NHW Co-ordinators, particularly reporting problems, suggesting solutions, helping to reduce the fear of crime in the local area and encouraging more people to become involved in community safety.

If you would like to join the community safety group in your area to help drive this important work forward, please contact the community safety group co-ordinator on 01454 868760 or email steve.shield@southalos.aov.uk. Or you can contact Melanie Wills, NHW Administrator.