East Belfast Collaborative Project wins Outstanding Impact Award

EBCDA's Youth Diversionary and Outreach Programme won the award for "Outstanding Impact in Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour" at the first ever Policing and Community Safety (PCSP) Awards, held in Parliament Buildings on Wednesday 29 May. This was awarded jointly to a similar project managed by Ardoyne Youth Enterprise. 

Funded by East Belfast (D)PCSP, the programme delivered a series of interventions with young people across East Belfast to prevent and address anti-social behaviour. These included: delivery of an OCN in restorative street work for local practitioners; diversionary activities in Short Strand; and targeted street work interventions by the "East Belfast Street Team" - a group of workers from four youth organisations - on Friday and Saturday evenings in identified ASB "hot-spots." This work developed as an initiative from East Belfast Practitioners Forum. 

The programme was highly collaborative in nature and the main project partners were: East Belfast Alternatives, Youth Initiatives, Willowfield Parish Community Association, Walkway Community Association, and Short Strand Community Forum. 

In terms of the impact of the East Belfast Street Team, East Belfast Neighbourhood Inspector Keith Hutchinson said,

"The Street Team Project undertaken in East Belfast has developed some very effective partnership working and information sharing between Police, other statutory organisations and community based groups to address issues of Anti-Social Behaviour. It has ensured early intervention in key hotspot areas with real time coordination and working and has seen a drop of 15% in ASB incidents over the last year.”

For more information on the work of the East Belfast Street Team, and East Belfast Youth Practitioners Forum, contact Amy Gillen, Inner East Youth Work Coordinator at amy@ebcda.org or call 028 9045 1512.