Funding for Planned Interventions Projects is making a positive difference by diverting young people away from anti-social behaviour and dealing with heightened tensions around interfaces, Junior Ministers Gary Middleton and Declan Kearney have said.
Funding for Planned Interventions Projects is making a positive difference by diverting young people away from anti-social behaviour and dealing with heightened tensions around interfaces, Junior Ministers Gary Middleton and Declan Kearney have said.
Junior Minister Middleton visited Lincoln Courts Youth and Community Association, which is currently delivering three Planned Interventions Projects during summer 2021.
During the visit Junior Minister Middleton had an opportunity to hear at first-hand participants’ experiences of the projects and the difference they have made to their daily lives.
Junior Minister Middleton said:
“I am delighted to see how the Planned Interventions Programme is making such a positive difference in young people’s lives. As well as bringing young people together to take part in fun activities, participants have had the opportunity to learn more about other cultures, as well as being educated on the negative effects to both themselves and others of participating in risk-taking and anti-social behaviours.
“The fantastic work taking place by groups across Northern Ireland in delivering Planned Interventions Projects is a great example of how the T:BUC Strategy is helping develop positive and lasting changes within our communities.
“I would like to pay tribute to all youth workers involved in delivering such programmes, for their dedication and commitment who work tirelessly to improve the lives and experiences of young people.”
Junior Minister Kearney said:
“The community-led initiatives funded through the Planned Interventions Programme are vital in helping to divert young people away from anti-social and potentially criminal behaviour around illegal bonfires, contentious parades and public assemblies.
“The programme also helps to deal with heightened tensions around interfaces during the summer months. This important work, delivered as part of the Executive’s wider Together: Building a United Community strategy, has hugely positive benefits not only for the young people directly involved, but also their families and the communities in which they live.”
110 groups across NI were funded to deliver Planned Interventions Projects during summer 2021.
Notes to editors:
1. The Planned Interventions programme aims to engage the ‘most at risk’ young people between the ages of 10 to 25 years in positive experiences and opportunities, as a diversion from involvement in sectarian activities, civil disorder or criminal behaviour.
2. Projects are tasked with operating at key times, when the likelihood of social unrest is high, or tensions between communities are heightened.
3. The programme also seeks to develop the capacity of individuals and groups of children and young people to meaningfully take part in structured cross community engagement and relationship building programmes, such as T:BUC Camps.
4. The main outcomes of the Planned Interventions Programme are to:
• Reduce the number of crime and antisocial behaviour incidents in the areas where the young people live
• Reduce the number of young people engaging in risk taking behaviours
• Increase the % of young people who think favourably about young people in the other community.
5. £400,000 has been awarded across 110 groups in NI to deliver Planned Interventions Projects during Summer 2021.
6. More information on the T:BUC Strategy can be accessed at: www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/topics/good-relations-and-social-change/together-building-united-community-tbuc
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