VRP Needs Assessment & Response Strategy

The Needs Assessment for the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) provides an evidence-based public health assessment of serious violence in the county, supported by the Influential Factors report. The Response Strategy provides a West Yorkshire framework for preventing and reducing serious violence.

VRP Needs Assessment

The Needs Assessment for the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) provides an evidence-based public health assessment of serious violence in the county. It does this by identifying, defining and analysing the underlying drivers of violence particular to the region. The picture built through the assessment informs the VRP’s Response Strategy, allowing the team to deliver bespoke, targeted interventions to the areas of greatest need, where they will have the greatest impact.

Download the West Yorkshire VRP Needs Assessment 2023-2024 (PDF 4.99MB)

Download the West Yorkshire VRP Needs Assessment 2023-2024 - Accessible Version (Word 3.59MB)

 

VRP Influential Factors

The aim of this document is to offer insight and increase understanding of factors influencing violence by:

• collating and reviewing appropriate evidence,
• providing a contextual summary of several risk
and protective factors,
• highlighting knowledge gaps and,
• offering recommendations for provision or
future research, where appropriate.


The document should be read in conjunction with the West Yorkshire strategic needs assessment to provide contextual understanding to the landscape of serious violence in the region. The Violence Reduction Partnership’s research portfolio will complement and enhance the findings evidenced in this document; our published research is available here.

Download the Influential Factors Report 2024 

 

VRP Response Strategy

This Response Strategy provides a West Yorkshire framework for preventing and reducing serious violence. Informed by the evidence base of the Needs Assessment, the strategy sets out our understanding of serious violence, local needs and how we will respond to this.

A refresh of our previous annual Serious Violence Response Strategy, this Strategy brings together a more evidenced based, developed, integrated partnership understanding and vision of tackling serious violence.

The Response Strategy therefore provides the framework for the work of the Violence Reduction Partnership (VRP) and also that for wider West Yorkshire partners.

Download the West Yorkshire VRP Response Strategy 2024 (PDF 1MB)

Download the West Yorkshire VRP Response Strategy 2024 - Accessible Version (Word 1MB)

 

 

 

Research

The Violence Reduction Partnership’s Knowledge Hub are continuously striving to better understand the scale and extent of violence in West Yorkshire as well as those root causes and protective factors that may make a person more susceptible or protect them from violence involvement or exploitation.

Our learning is pulled together in the yearly Needs Assessment, which in turn feeds the Response Strategy informing the priority areas we need to address.

Our Needs Assessment also helps us identify where we have gaps in our knowledge and understanding. To address the gaps, we design, undertake and commission research throughout the year.

Whilst key findings will be drawn into the latest version of our Needs Assessment, the full reports are published on our Research page.

 

Evaluation

The VRP exists to reduce and prevent violence in West Yorkshire, increasing safety for residents of the region. As an organisation, the VRP continually looks to refine and develop our suite of activities. A critical component of this process of improvement is our programme of evaluation.

We carry out evaluation because we want to make sure that we are achieving our intended violence reduction outcomes. We also want to make sure that our money is being spent in the right areas and is having the best possible impact.

At the VRP, the key mechanism for reviewing how we achieve our goals is through a cycle of monitoring, review, assessment and analysis that we collectively term evaluation. Nevertheless, we consider evaluation to be any systematic process to judge merit, worth or significance by combining evidence and values.

We evaluate our violence reduction projects through a combination of in-house monitoring that utilises the expertise we have within the VRP, and commissioned external partners to offer us an independent, unbiased and holistic view of our progress.

Visit our Evaluations page.

 

VRP Knowledge Hub

Our ongoing research and evaluation is made available for closer collaboration in tackling serious violence, via a monthly scanning document.

This is shared alongside external research in the fields of criminal justice, violence reduction, and community wellbeing, curated by the WY VRP Knowledge Hub.

To receive a copy of this, please email the knowledge hub.

 

West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit