A strong partnership with Voluntary Sector experts is vitally important to the Charity’s mission as well as helping schools and youth groups tackle difficult issues. We see it as our duty to achieve positive change within education, even if the topic is difficult to discuss. Alongside Educate & Celebrate and Perivale School, StreetDoctors is another example of how important it is to ensure difficult conversations are taking place.
StreetDoctors is currently in its first year of funding with John Lyon’s Charity but has been operating since 2013. The organisation teaches life-saving skills to young people at risk of youth violence, for example basic skills such as what to do if someone is bleeding or unconscious.
Partnership and trusted relationships are extremely important to StreetDoctors as they do not work directly with children and young people. They deliver their services through a range of partners, such as schools, youth and community groups, and criminal justice organisations. The goal is to target any area where there are young people who are vulnerable or at risk of youth violence.
Funding from John Lyon’s Charity reinforces StreetDoctors’ operations and allows them to provide support to deliver a vital service to children and young people within the Beneficial Area. Utilising the Charity’s network of Young People’s Foundations, it opens up additional opportunities for StreetDoctors to spread their message to vulnerable young people and ultimately save lives.
In 2019, there were 45,627 knife or sharp instrument offences in the UK, with knife crime offences rising by 7% to record high levels in December alone. Many young people who attend sessions with StreetDoctors have already been a victim, witness or perpetrator of youth violence.
Through funding from John Lyon’s Charity, StreetDoctors aim is to deliver training to 500 young people in its first year of funding within our Beneficial Area.