Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

Article by: Diana Lamplugh OBE, Director, The Suzy Lamplugh Trust.

I can remember it with a rare clarity – those last few moments I was ever to have with my eldest daughter before she vanished, never to be seen again. Suzy was just getting into her car fairly late that Sunday evening. She wanted to prepare for Monday and clear up the mess she had left after a hectic weekend. Like many mothers who cared and yet did not want to interfere, I tentatively ventured “Aren’t you over doing things a bit, darling?� “Oh Mum�, she answered “Life is for living! Don’t you forget that�.

I have never forgotten those words. However real living needs quality. Living with quality means living with freedom to choose: having the freedom to be oneself, whilst respecting and valuing others whoever they might be. To achieve this aim, we need to live without harassment and fear of danger.

The Trust

We began quite logically with the Trust, named after my daughter, to find out the problems of aggression and violence in the workplace and search for the answers. These naturally extended to problems with travel as well as working in strange places with unknown people. We vowed to enable all people to lead safer lives and inevitably we began to realise that the earlier we could enable children to feel safe and stay safe, these life skills could help them deal with aggression and violence throughout their lives.

SafeWise

SafeWise, the book and video aimed to develop safer independence for young people, is a dream come true. We are delighted that NCPTA with HSBC have made this possible. Schools are so well placed to make a difference. They have the structures, the resources, the experience and expertise. However schools cannot “go it alone�. They will need to enlist the help of parents and, wherever possible, the support of the wider community.

This resource seeks to enable teachers, parents and the children themselves to find opportunities to think out, practise and internalise their own safety strategies, well before the time that they seem for a greater measure of independence from their adults. The resource continues into the times when independence brings extra fears and dangers such as work experience, “clubbing� or going abroad for a Gap year.

This educational resource has been supported by both the DfEE, the Home Office and DETR. The response from parents and schools has been very encouraging, the reviews have been good.

As John Boal, The Chief Executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust says:

“SafeWise is a wonderfully clear, practical and realistic approach to the problem of how best to enable today’s school children to be and to feel safe. It should be read by every Head, PSHE Specialist and classroom teacher and those who Do need it will undoubtedly draw heavily upon it in findings ways to convey its vital and timely message to the young people under their care�.

The Trust believes that early education is the best long term method of creating a safer society and we feel that it is vital that this unique pack should become an essential resource within the National Curriculum, the Healthy Schools Standard and Safe Routes to School projects, as well as youth groups and Community Safety projects. Community Safety officers will find the whole resource very helpful.

The Trust’s approach to Personal Safety, a potentially difficult subject, is an innovative one which enables children and young people to develop the life skills they need to defuse, avoid and deal with violence and aggression throughout their lives and to gradually take responsibility for themselves.

A very senior officer in the Metropolitan Police wrote about Safewise:

“Anything that can be of benefit to the safety and well being of our children must be encouraged and I reflect Mr. Boal’s observations in that the SafeWise project carries a definite and pragmatic message which is worthy of promulgation to our youngsters. I have personally delivered the message of the SafeWise package to my own young daughter. I found that this approach to personal safety was effectively directed and focused, enabling its positive communication to the relevant age group�.

This letter gives me some very real hope for a safer future.

Diana Lamplugh OBE
Director, The Suzy Lamplugh Trust
25th May 2000

More information from:
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust
National Centre for Personal Safety
Hampton House
20 Albert Embankment
London
SE1 7TJ
Tel: 0181 392 1839
Website: http://www.suzylamplugh.org/