Building character and resilience, offering mediation, focusing on students’ routes to and from school, and developing strong pupil-staff relationships are all key to tackling gang involvement.
A new report based on the experiences of five alternative provision schools in three UK cities offers a range of practical advice aimed at helping all schools to improve safety and security.
Safer Schools has been compiled by the Dawes Unit, a specialist gangs research unit within Catch22, a social enterprise aimed at building resilience and aspiration in communities. It is published alongside a snapshot survey of teachers’ views on gang culture in schools.
The survey finds that 27 per cent of the teachers polled, the majority of who are from mainstream schools, are concerned about rising levels of gang activity inside their schools; 31 per cent reported a knife incident during the past 12 months.
However, while 65 per cent said that they are aware of gang-related activity in the community, only 22 per cent say they see this inside the school. Although just 19 per cent are confident about identifying and tackling gang-related incidents.
Safer Schools warns that when youth gang culture enters a school, “this can put the safety of pupils and staff at risk and create challenging environments for teachers to educate their pupils”.
It adds: “Schools with a gang presence are more likely than other schools to experience high rates of violence, a decline in pupils’ educational engagement and school attachment. Challenges around the possession of weapons and the use and distribution of drugs significantly increase.”
Effective steps to tackle gang activity and involvement include:
- Building supporting and trusting relationships with students and families.
- Improving staff knowledge and training about gang culture.
- Investing in early intervention and prevention.
- Reducing the use of permanent exclusions.
- Introducing a visible end-of-school-day presence.
- Building and encouraging positive links with local police.
The report urges a focus on routes to and from school. It states that violent incidents inside school premises involving weapons are rare, but that “gang-involved pupils are more likely to carry weapons and engage in conflict involving the use of weapons on their journeys to and from school”.
It details incidents in which students experienced violent confrontations and stabbings on their journeys to and from school and said that this threat led to young people carrying knives “to protect themselves”.
The report states: “To reduce the likelihood of gang-related violence occurring, a number of schools had implemented policies regarding the end of the school day.
“One school, for example, ensured that members of staff were present at the school gates, as well as at the nearby bus stops which pupils used to return home. These policies were appreciated by gang-involved pupils, who reported that these were the times when they felt most exposed to violent conflict.”
Elsewhere, the report urges “timely mediation” between gang-involved pupils, “both to pre-empt conflict and to resolve it”. Teachers in the report recommend mediation above suspension.
Also key is fostering positive relationships between pupils and adults at the school. The report states: “Many pupils report that they lacked positive relationships with teachers in their previous mainstream school or pupil referral unit.
“Positive relationships between staff and pupils not only create safer schools, but also enable members of staff to address low levels of educational attachment and engagement, both of which are significant predictors of gang involvement.
“A key benefit of positive staff–pupil relationships was that members of staff could have their finger on the relational pulse between pupils; they were able to recognise the warning signs of potential conflict at an early stage, pre-empt violent episodes and take preventative action.”
The report calls for more research into the impact that resilience and character education programmes can have on gang-involved pupils. Projects aimed at helping young people “to build character, resilience and grit have the potential to bolster young people’s confidence and ability to resist gang culture”.
Safer Schools also highlights the importance of building relationships with community organisations and students’ families.
However, just 31 per cent of the teachers in the snapshot survey said that their schools had links to local crime prevention charities.
The report concludes: “Gang-involved young people do not spend the entirety of their waking hours wedded to a gang member identity; gang-related attitudes and behaviours are exhibited only under certain conditions and around certain people.
“If schools support gang-involved young people to leave gang culture outside the school gates – with all of its associated stresses and risks – and transition into a safe and nurturing school environment, pupils will often embrace this opportunity. When this happens, the negative effects associated with pupil gang-involvement fade.”
Download the report, Safer Schools, at http://bit.ly/254uvZB