Director, Glasgow Girls Club
Over the past year Glasgow Girls Club have been delighted to have been able to get back to face to face work with girls and women and pick up on its youth engagement and community connector efforts since the pandemic struck in March 2020.
Police Scotland – In March 2022 Glasgow Girls Club (GGC) were approached by Police Scotland to co-design and deliver a programme to support and empower local girls who had been identified as at risk by the school Campus and Community Police Officers attending local secondary school Bannerman High. Area Partnership Funding had been secured to facilitate an 8-week programme focussed on young women in a local area (Baillieston). The Area Partnership priorities aligning with the project were:
• Community Safety
• Improve Health and Wellbeing
• Services for Young People
The subjects of suicide prevention, mental health first aid and gender-based violence were all relevant for the girls who participated.
GGC have experience in delivering crisis prevention & women’s safety initiatives across the city and went on to codesign a positive engagement programme with Police Scotland. The aims of the programme were to allow and empower vulnerable at-risk female participants to develop peer support to:
- make better choices;
- develop positive healthy relationships – leading to greater resilience;
- decreased risk taking behaviour; and
- active participation in the community.
Although known to the Police, participants hadn’t been in trouble, and they attended the sessions voluntarily – Baillieston Community Police worked with the Campus Officer to identify the girls that could potentially benefit the most from the sessions. It was a fun relaxed programme consisting of taster sessions (everything from dance to woodworking) that we ran together over 8 weeks for 2 hours on a Friday evening. The programme culminated in 2 sessions with Scottish comedian, actress and writer, Karen Dunbar, cowriting a rap about the girls’ experiences in relation to street safety in their local neighbourhood with the group. LISTEN TO THE RAP – BY CLICKING THE PICTURE LINK BELOW:
The sessions were well attended and received by participants. Further funding has since been secured to keep the momentum going and we are exploring ways the service can be independently sustained and embedded into the community on a long-term basis. The model has also been replicated with Maryhill community partners G20 Youth Festival and GGC are in discussions with other secondary schools to run similar initiatives.
Engaging a group in this way also helped to form positive associations with the Police, reduce the time that the involved females are out on the street involved in risk taking and antisocial behaviours, and create real life-chances. According to oursisterhood.co.uk, 67% of girls aged 11-21 think women don’t have the same chances as men. By providing opportunities to find a career pathway, and teaching budgeting and self-sufficiency in the home we hope to reduce poverty chances in young women.
Police Scotland are currently developing a Violence against Women and Girls Strategy. The organisation works to tackle abuse, investigate crime and have published the ‘Violence Against Women and Misogyny and Sexism Core Brief’.
Officers involved said that they hoped to be able to continue to offer more to young women to educate and empower them as a preventative measure against gender-based violence but also to give them the confidence to speak out, seek help, and have trust in the Police.
