GMP Mentoring Project to Support Young People Impacted by Serious and Violent Crime across Greater Manchester - A Process Evaluation

Young people smiling at the camera

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have obtained short-term funding to pilot an 18-month programme which will support 56 young people impacted by serious and violent crime across Greater Manchester.

The programme forms part of Operation Challenger, GMP’s multi agency response to the Government’s Serious Violence Strategy. Its overarching aim is to prevent children and young people's future involvement in serious organised criminal activity and violence, both as perpetrators and victims.

The programme is underpinned by 1-2-1 mentoring support provided by trained mentors who are matched, based on their own experiences and outlook, to the young person (typically 16–18-year-olds) as soon as they join the programme. This mentor and mentee relationship will be established and developed over up to 20 sessions and will see the mentor take responsibility for the creation of a mutually agreed and bespoke support offering for the mentee, including a broad range of diversionary activities, wellbeing referrals, and employment and education opportunities.

The academics involved in this work are Dr Shona Morrison as lead (POP) with support from Dr Emma Williams (CPRL). This proposed process evaluation will consider the perceived benefits of the programme to the young people and to policing partners from the perspective of the young people, mentors and other partners involved in delivery. More broadly, the review will offer insights into the use of mentors within the police and diversion arena, particularly relating to early intervention and youth violence in the UK.

The findings will be relevant to all policing partners, and not just GMP, as there are similar schemes in place across the country. Such programmes involve significant financial investment, and yet the evidence base in this area remains limited.

The project is intended to go live with proactive referrals for intervention being received and assessed by the project team from around April 2022. The evaluation team will undertake a scoping phase involving:

A desk review of all project documentation (e.g., inclusion criteria, referral pathways)
Participation in early project set up and governance meetings
Objective clarification
Development of evaluation plan, including a quantitative data collection strategy

The review will focus on the experiences of the intervention (qualitative) as perceived by approximately 30 of the youth participants (one to one interviews), as well as project staff (via focus groups). Intended themes for the review are:

Baseline perceptions of young people at (pre) entry into the programme on:
Personal well-being, perceptions of safety and support
Level of involvement in criminality and motivations for change
Expectations of the programme and motivations for taking part

Post-programme perceptions of young people towards the end of participation but prior to programme exit on:

Changes in criminal activity/gang association/other behavioural change
Changes in psycho-social well-being and feelings of safety
Perceptions of police/support services and future willingness to ask for support
Perceived benefits of the project or consequences from participation

Mid to post-programme reflections of mentors / project staff on:

Process issues (project implementation and delivery)
Perceived benefits to participation
Barriers to and enablers of success and key learning points

Nov 2023: The ‘WeMove’ mentoring programme involving GMP and two delivery partners and is now entering its second year. Fourteen baseline interviews with young people starting the programme have been completed, as well as two follow-up interviews with young people 12 months later (three more follow-up interviews are pending). A mentor focus group involving mentors from one of the delivery partners has also been completed, in addition to three interviews with key stakeholders focussing on project implementation. A theory of change serves as a framework for the evaluation, which will be updated as the work progresses to help understand the mechanisms and contexts through which mentoring can achieve the goals of reducing the risks to young people of violence, exploitation and organised crime. A final completion date of end August 2024 has been agreed for the project, preceded by an interim report in early 2024.

This project is funded by GMP and CPRL membership.