One of the first things the subgroup members did was to meet with representatives of Essex Police. From them, they learned about the 2smart initiative and the roadshows. These inspired the group's name - 2C4C is actually "2 clever 4 crime" and to make it into a logo, rather than just a set of initials, it is written using a font called "KrylonGothic."
Firstly, the subgroup members were asked to critique the 2SMART website (www.2smart.co.uk), which they undertook enthusiastically. Their thoughts and suggestions have already been passed to the Head of the Children & Young People’s Policing Team at Essex Police headquarters, for feeding into the future development of the website. This project is ongoing, so if anybody would like to contribute and send us their critique of the 2smart website, please follow this link to the webpage critique form and email it back to yea@essex.gov.uk. Thank you.
Most recently, the members were asked to undertake the re-writing of the Policing Pledge document in a child and young person friendly format. Having agreed a draft of this document, it has since been presented to Chief Officers and is very nearly completed. The subgroup have also discussed the various media which can be used to circulate it and it is hoped that the YEA members will be involved in producing a pod-cast which can be uploaded onto the 2SMART website and USB wristbands.
This hasn't all "just happened." In order to inform themselves about the background of police work with young people, subgroup members have spent considerable time talking to young people in their schools and youth groups and some of them have attended the 2smart roadshows which have recently been delivered around Essex.
Watch this space!
After creating an action plan, one of the issues decided to be tackled by the 2C4C subgroup was internet crime. Currently, work is already being carried out on this in schools and so we are looking not to duplicate this but to expand upon it. We are looking into creating a resource to go out to schools in order to deliver information in a current and impacting way, tackling issues around chat room and social networking crime and safety as well as problems caused through information sharing.
The group wanted to support four area graffiti projects with the messages, “art, not vandalism” and “brush, not knife”. The police have been a great help and have identified areas of need as well as artists and supporting police officers to help with the actual project. The subgroup are looking into working on this project next year and will apply for funding to hopefully enable them to run the art workshops .