The strategic Needs Assessment defines and analyses the underlying drivers of violence in West Yorkshire. The picture built through the assessment informs the Violence Reduction Partnership's Response Strategy, allowing the team to deliver bespoke, targeted interventions to the areas of greatest need, where they will have the greatest impact.
The aim of this report is to offer insight and increase understanding of factors influencing violence by:
The report 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.
This Response Strategy provides a framework for preventing and reducing serious violence in West Yorkshire. 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.
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 of wider West Yorkshire partners.
The Violence Reduction Partnership’s Knowledge Hub works hard to understand the scale and extent of violence in West Yorkshire. We focus on its root causes and protective factors that affect a person's risk of involvement in violence or exploitation.
We compile our findings in a yearly Needs Assessment. This assessment guides our Response Strategy and highlights priority areas to tackle.
It also helps us identify gaps in our knowledge and understanding. To fill these gaps, we design, conduct, 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 below.
The Violence Reduction Partnership aims to cut and prevent violence in West Yorkshire. This enhances safety for local residents. The VRP constantly seeks to refine and develop our activities. A key part of this improvement is our evaluation programme.
We evaluate to ensure we achieve our intended violence reduction outcomes. We also want to make sure that our money is being spent in the right areas to have the greatest impact.
Our main way to review progress involves a cycle of monitoring, reviewing, assessing, and analysing, which we call evaluation. We see evaluation as a systematic process to assess merit, worth or significance, using evidence and values.
We evaluate our violence reduction projects through in-house monitoring. We also work with external partners to gain an independent, holistic and unbiased view of our progress.
