Its own evaluation of its youth violence intervention programme (YVIP) in 2017-18, found that 57% of young people had reduced involvement with violence after working with the charity. Yet Poyton is keen to stress that “violence is a health issue”. He describes Redthread as a health charity, not a “gangs, violence and knife crime organisation”. “The reason we’ve scaled the work around violence is because violence is a health issue that doesn’t already have other referral pathwaysor other support mechanisms in place,” he says. Education: The Appleton school, Benfleet, Essex; South East Essex Sixth Form College; Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, US (BA youth work and theology).

Source: The Guardian June 18, 2019 12:00 UTC