Welcome to the Peapod. Welcome back once again to the P-Pod, the partnership podcast from the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. My name is Steve McAbee. I'm the multi-agency training manager for the partnership. And today I have a very exciting day lined up for us because this comes on the back really of some conversations that I've had recently. In terms of concerns around serious youth violence, around child sexual exploitation, child criminal exploitation, we've done a huge amount of work over the years, understanding, recognizing that, and looking at pathways of support for children and young people. And in particular, looking about how we can report concerns and what agencies are there to be able to pick up those concerns and potentially put in place those pieces of the jigsaw to make that bigger picture. Now, recently I was delivering some training and somebody asked me a fantastic question during a break and they said, that's fine. You've talked to all about how agencies can report concerns, but what about children? What about young people? They are often the people that have knowledge and pick up on these things. But actually, how do they get information through to be able to tackle concerns that they might have? So I'm really pleased today to be joined by my guests, Lauren, who is the Youth Projects Coordinator and Georgie, the National Projects and Campaigns Manager for Crime Stoppers, who are here to talk about exactly that. And in particular, talk about fearless, which is specifically aimed at answering that question. Lauren, Georgie, thank you so much for coming along today. It's really good to talk to both of you and get some of your expertise in this area and see sort of some of the things that that you come across on a daily basis. Before we get into some of the nitty gritty of it, um can you give me bit of an overview of what Fearless is all about? Fearless is the youth project of the independent charity Crime Stoppers, so aimed at 11 to 17 year olds. Fearless essentially provides a safe place for young people to report any crime information that they may have 100 % anonymously. You mentioned in your intro, you know, there will be situations or times where it's really difficult for a young person to tell someone what they know for whatever reason that may be, whether that be a distrust of the police or authority figures, whether they don't have that. safe person or place to go to. So we want to be that extra option for young people if they have information about crime, they can come to us at fearless.org or they can use our free phone line at 100 555 211. Tell us everything that they know and then we pass that information on to the relevant police, force or authority and they will be kept 100 % anonymous throughout that process. Crime Stoppers was set up about 40 years ago and the idea was that there were people out in the community that we knew and the police knew had information about crime but they weren't speaking up for various reasons, potentially around distrust of the police. could be generations past that this distrust has come through and Crime Stoppers was set up to give people a way to speak up about crime 100 % anonymously. Fearless was set up around 15 years ago because we realised that there was a need to be able to communicate directly with young people. The branding of Crime Stoppers maybe is not going to resonate with them, so we needed to have a slightly different approach with language, that kind of thing. And also start earlier with building the trust in our anonymity promise and helping to break down those barriers to reporting crime. The main aim of Fearless is to empower young people to speak up about crime and to help keep their communities safe and make life safer for everyone. When we talk about speaking up that could be to a trusted adult first and foremost but we also want them to know about the fearless service. With fearless, yes we have the reporting option but actually our main aim is around crime prevention. So we want to be giving young people information that's going to help them make good choices and look out for themselves and their friends. We want to be letting them know what the law states about crime, helping them to spot the signs of crime. So the three things we are doing is one, promoting that unique service to speak up about crime 100 % anonymously. The second thing is raising awareness of what constitutes a crime and giving them information about different crimes. And the third is helping break down the barriers to reporting crime. We've got regional and national campaigns, so they might be digital or out of home, so they could be on a range of topics depending on who the funder is. Recent campaigns include things like... the knife crime county lines, female genital mutilation, the use of ketamine and the dangers of ketamine use. So it could be anything and everything we're covering and the information we get from young people and what they're worried about will help inform those campaigns. We also have an outreach team who go into schools and other youth settings and they deliver sessions to young people. They're completely free of charge to the settings they're going into. Again, depending on the funder, they could be looking at a variety of different topics. So firstly, obviously raising awareness of fearlessness in our service. is a big one. Looking at the difference between snitching and reporting and how to be a bystander or a good friend, how to look out for your friends and people you care about, but also maybe more crime type specifics such as knife crime county lines and hate crime are ones we cover most often. We then do a lot of work with trying to get our information out to professionals so we've got those professional sessions that we run online and our outreach team will also go out into their communities. We also have an incredible network of volunteers again helping us spread the message. Ryt, is Crime Stopper's been around for 40 years? Wow. uh So yeah, 40 years of keeping our anonymity promise. I think you're right to pick up. There are lots of barriers to people reporting concerns. And like I said, picked up 40 years ago around that, there is a lot of anxiety around that. So having that platform to be able to report concerns anonymously and get that information through is really crucial. But like I say, I think that development of that just going back 15 years ago now to recognizing actually potentially when we were looking at young people, we need to think about that a bit differently in terms of branding approach in terms of some of that messaging is really key, isn't it? Do you find that generally... people are aware of fearless. I guess although this fearless is aimed at young people, do you find that professionals are particularly aware of It depends who you ask. you know, obviously we're on a mission to get it out to as many professionals as possible. We want every young person to know about Fearless. So it's what is speaking directly to them. It's really important that we connect with professionals and let them know we're here. Firstly, because, we're only a small team. So as much as we can work collaboratively and tap into other networks who can help us get that message out further, that's brilliant. So over the last 15 years, we have been trying to get the message out to as many professionals as possible, and it's still something that we are aiming to do. In recent years, we've begun delivering regular online information sessions so that we can speak to as many professionals in one go as possible. So there's going to be loads of professionals out there that do know about us, but there's still, of course, work to do. We're not as well known as Crimestoppers as a brand. For us, we think it's really important that every single young person knows about Fearless. But in order to do that, yes, we want to get our messages directly to our main audience. But if we can get to professionals, A, it helps us in terms of reach and just get out to more people with them filtering the message down for us. And also, if they already have a trusted relationship with a young person, I think it adds a lot of value and a young person might be more likely to look at and trust our service if it's coming from an adult that they trust and they already have an existing relationship with. Yeah. I like to say if we can empower professionals to be aware of it, then they can help empower children, young people to be aware of it as well. Quite often, I would imagine that young people wouldn't want to contact Fearless because of fear of repercussion or because of that sort of stigma around it sometimes, it? Of kind of snitching on your mates sort of thing. How do you kind of tackle those issues? There's loads of reasons why young people might not report. The ones that I've heard most often since I've been here around that field repercussions, which we never want to minimise, especially for young people who are living in maybe underserved communities where crime is more prevalent, maybe they're growing up surrounded by it. You know, those fears are very real. Trust in the police. Again, I've... come into contact with young people and all of their interactions with police have been negative. So it's understandable that there might be some trust issues. So really trying to offer another way that they can still speak up and not having to deal directly with police. And that's something that we're trying to help with. We hear a lot about snitching. For young people, this is a real big fear. You know, they don't want to be seen as a snitch. They don't want to be seen as a grass. There's been many reports done on it and that have suggested that actually a lot of young people would rather get themselves into trouble than be seen as a snitch. So this is huge for young people. We need to recognise that this is a real barrier. So a lot of the work that we do when we're talking about these barriers and snitching is... trying to help young people recognise the difference between snitching and reporting. When we're talking about snitching, it's usually because somebody wants to hurt or harm somebody else, perhaps someone has upset them or they want to get their own back in some way. But when we're talking about reporting, it's very different. We're talking about reporting and not just to the police, but reporting is all about actually keeping ourselves or our community safe. Suddenly the problem is quite urgent. There's people at immediate danger of risk or harm and they need help. It might be a situation for a young person where actually now they do need an adult's help or they need someone who's better equipped to deal with that situation. Encouraging young people to ask for help and letting young people know that actually asking for help is a real strength, it's not a weakness, can be really powerful as well. Even as adults, we find it hard to ask for help sometimes, but it's a real strength to be able to say, actually, I can't manage this on my own now and I need someone's help. And we're speaking up and reporting because... We know morally that what has happened is wrong and something needs to be done about it. So there is a real difference between snitching and reporting and helping young people to recognise those differences really underpins a lot of the work that we're doing. You know, it's not snitching if it's saving a life. If sharing that information means someone's life is saved, then surely that's worth way more than the worry and fear around snitching. And obviously if we can, as a service, alleviate some of those fears around the fearing of the repercussions because of the anonymity that we provide, then hopefully that helps encourage more young people and empower more young people to actually speak up and recognise when they've seen something that is wrong or a crime and actually something needs to be done about it. Snitching is usually about getting someone into trouble and reporting is about getting someone out of trouble. you talk about speaking up, my head immediately goes to, if we take knife crime as an example, you're going to want to maybe speak up so that nobody gets injured with that knife. And I think that is potentially saving someone's life. it's also the person carrying. In the moment, speaking up, you may feel worried that you're going to get them into trouble. But also, if they go on to use that knife, they're potentially going to then spend their life in prison. So there's more people there that you're helping without maybe realising it. It gives the opportunity as well for someone maybe carrying a weapon to get support, advice, some education around why carrying is bad. We hear young people carrying knives for protection when actually the statistics show that you're more likely to be injured with your own knives. So speaking up can do more than just saving a potential obvious victim. And it comes back to that ripple effect that we were talking about earlier. I think you're right, there is often that thing that's like, okay, well I snitch on them, then they're going to get into trouble and I don't want to get my mate into trouble. But actually that point of actually potentially you could be saving their life. Yeah. Or somebody else's life. And even actually, you know, like say if they use it, they're going to be far, far bigger trouble, which is going to affect the rest of their life. So in the moment they might be like, oh, this is the worst thing that could happen. But actually, years down the line, they'll be grateful for that. And I'm sure if you speak to people who maybe have lived experience with the criminal justice system, and we have people within our network who will say that they almost wish that somebody hadn't spoken up sooner, because it ultimately would have helped them in the long run. What sort of crimes can young people report through that? Is it just around exploitation and serious violence or is it broader? No, young people can report crime information to us and that can be about any crime. There will be situations or times where there's information that we can't take. For example, we can't take information from victims of crime. It's really important to mention that actually because our main aim as a charity is to protect the anonymity of those people that are reporting to us. So unfortunately, we are unable to take information from a victim of crime. and in that instance, it's really important that young people obviously speak to a trusted adult, a parent or guardian, or they report to the police. But we also on our fearless.org website have a full list of youth support services for young people in that situation. It's also really important to mention that we are not an emergency service. So if a young person is in an emergency situation, they must always call 999, not come to our form or to our phone line, because we just cannot guarantee that we will able to get that information to the police quick enough to manage and deal with that situation. But generally speaking, we can take information on any crime type, not just exploitation. Obviously, for young people particularly, there might be kind of the key concerns that probably do come up are around drugs or knife crime, but we can take information on any crime type. Just thinking about that then, that must be potentially quite difficult for people on those phone lines if they've got a young person phone them where something where like say they are either a victim or at potentially immediate risk. How do those on the phone lines deal with that? That must be quite tricky I should think. say firstly the likelihood of a young person using the phone line is they're probably more likely to use the online form so we make it very clear on that page and all through our website that we cannot take information from victims so that sign posting page is really key. If people are calling and they are the victim of crime and our contact centre staff will refer them to victim support and ensure that they can pass some information on and get the support they need that way. On the phone line, it's tough because of our anonymity promise, we won't be identifying if the caller is a young person. The contact center staff will recommend some partners and some other organizations that might be appropriate depending on what the issue is. But generally speaking, if it's an emergency, they will be advised to call 999. Something that we are able to do if it's a time sensitive issue is we do have processes in place with police forces where we can sort of fast track information through. If we know something's going to happen later that day, for example, you know, if someone got a knife and there's a planned fight after school and we know it's going to happen at 5pm in the afternoon, there will be a way for them to fast track that. But generally if it's an emergency, someone's in immediate danger, we will re-emphasize that message that that's not a place for us, that's not where we can step in and help. I kind of mentioned the phone line there, and you referred to messaging and the website. So in terms of kind of fearless and notifying of concerns, what are the different routes for that? Young people have got two ways to contact us. The first is fearless.org, our online form. It's a simplified version of the form available on Crimestoppers website. We have recently worked with young people to get some feedback and made some changes to make it more accessible and improve the usability on it. We want to make it as easy as possible for any young person to give us that information. We also have the phone line, which is Crimestoppers main number. All the information does come into the same place and actually... Until quite recently, we didn't mention Crimestoppers when talking about Fearless. And in our logo, you'll see we've now got part of Crimestoppers, we advertise the phone number. Although young people tell us that they're more likely to use the online form, we think it's really important that we are letting them know we're part of Crimestoppers. The number is also available so that there's sort of a journey there. And when they get to 18, they don't suddenly think, well, who am I supposed to go to now? So it's part of that sort of continuation and brand awareness. But also I would say, When we are talking about fearless and encouraging young people to use the service, there is maybe a benefit sometimes to using the phone number if they can, because the person on the other end of the phone is able to ask some questions to draw out information. And sometimes that can just be quite helpful in terms of us getting enough information to be able to pass on. It's interesting you were saying that, I was thinking as you were talking about it, because I can understand the thinking initially of actually we need to create some distance from Crime Stoppers. It's kind of official, but not official if you know what mean. It's got quite a nationally very recognised brand, but that association with police. So I can understand the thinking to say actually we need to completely separate this away. But actually, as you were talking, I was thinking I can see some real benefits to join them together because there are a lot of voluntary organisations out there. There's a lot of different campaigns out there. it's hard sometimes to actually kind of distinguish what might be something like Fearless to say, I don't know, a local voluntary organization working with young people, for example. So I agree. And I think having that crime stop is there. It is a massively recognized brand. around for a long, long time. And actually I can see some real benefit. Cause even though young people would see us associated with it, I don't think that's a bad thing actually. And it might say, it gives it more of an identity to say, this is part of this. This is something that is specifically for you. but it does have that overarching brand of the Crime Stoppers there so they know what it is. yeah, I would agree. I think that was a good decision to make to pull those together because young people aren't daft, you know, and they kind of actually, if they are contacting fearless for a purpose, they're doing it for a reason and they kind of know where they want that to go, I guess. Yeah, it's interesting to see that sort of that changing of things. And you talked about you did some work with young people around that. Do you do a lot of work with young people around the feel of it, the language of it, the branding, getting their feedback all the time? Yeah, so the voice of young people obviously is really important to us in the work that we're doing. You know, we are a youth brand, but we aren't young people. So it's really important for us that we are listening to young people and we're understanding their needs, what is trending for them, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, absolutely. We do our very best to do a lot of focus groups with young people around different projects. We also have our Fearless Youth panel. So our Fearless Youth Panel is made up of around 15 young people from across the UK who meet bi-monthly online and we often have projects going on that they support us with. So whether that be updating any of our resources, you know, with the last Youth Panel that we had, they helped us change some of our Fearless posters to make them more attractive or useful for young people. So they will help us work on lots of projects like that. And on various other projects that we have going on, we try our very best to kind of get those focus groups together and get young people's opinions, make sure their voice is heard. that actually, whenever we are creating something new, whether that be a campaign or a resource, the young person's voice is thread through the whole thing. You know, as I say, we like to think we're down with the kids, but we're not down with the kids. myself. I've got a birthday this week. I'm still falling myself. I'm young, but I know I'm not really. Before I this job, I was like, yeah, I'm cool. I know what they're talking about. And then you were with young people and you're like, no. You're old. Oh, do you what? I've got to share with you here. I'm obviously going over sharing, but I had this real gut moment where it just slapped me in the face recently that I'm definitely kidding myself if I think I'm still young. I've got two daughters. My oldest one's 10 and my oldest daughter said to me the other day, Dad, what was it like in the olden days? I was like, oh, there we The olden days. dear. Yeah, you are. Do you know the other thing as well? I think I just want to shout out as well, and we're trying to do it more and more and more. Our fearless team up in Scotland have been doing some absolutely brilliant co-design work. So not only sort of like listening to young people, but actually starting completely from scratch. And almost the young people are designing campaigns and it's been incredible. So we are definitely looking to do more of that. We're also, again, we're only a small team, so we can't get everywhere, but trying to get out to where young people are in spaces where they have the freedom and openness to talk. tell us and share their views. So we have been two in the last year, two events with the JD Sport Foundation. They run these incredible, interactive, engaging careers events, nothing like what I had when I was at school. And we've been lucky enough to go there and have a stand and they had sort of like 7,000 young people attending over two days. Those kind of events where we can get there and just have young people giving us this information is so useful to us. We know about what they're worried about, what they like about their communities, what they might change, what makes them feel safe. And we get this opportunity just to like ask all the questions we want to know and then use that to feed into creating social media content. And, you know, it was a bit of challenge because we are talking about very serious topics and we need to make it engaging so that young people come and find it in the first place. getting that balance between engaging, which often comes along with fun and interesting, but not making light of what is quite a serious subject as well, isn't it? Just out of interest, what sort of volume of kind of, I don't know what the word is, I was going to say calls, but it's probably more kind of interactions that you have with young people. Have you got any ideas how many kind of contacts you get on a monthly or a yearly basis or anything like that? Just think about volume. Yes. Steve, I actually have our impact talk next to me ready for this question. So a couple of things, like in terms of engagements with young people, so looking at last year, and this is when we're thinking about workshops, assemblies, community events, the number we've got is 52,000. So 52,000 young people reached, but that doesn't start bringing into account digital stuff like our organic social media and our campaigns. like those campaigns could read thousands, millions of people, know, impressions, that kind of stuff. Our reporting figures are all wrapped up with Crimestoppers, everything's coming into the same place. With Crimestoppers, in the last year, we're looking at nearly a million people contacting Crimestoppers. It's like 3,000 people daily are getting in touch through the phones and online, and more more increasingly, reports are coming through the online forms. So yeah, the numbers are big, and the more that we can do in real life in those engagements with young people, the better. Digital is great, but when you actually start having these conversations, it just allows for sort of more nuance and as Lauren says, like the listening and really learning from young people. Yeah, no doubt. And then presumably with that, you've got some really good pathways then to local police forces to say, okay, this intelligence has come through to us and to feed that out. Like I say, you're not an emergency service, but feeding that information out quite effectively. Yeah, so we have a network of regional managers around the UK that will have connections back into their forces. So they're working with one or more police forces. So that information will be passed back to them. And then where possible, we try and get information back from the police to say, yes, this information was useful. It went on to solve a crime. It was used in this case. Obviously, that's quite difficult. The police are busy. Resources limited. They're out there solving the crimes. But we do sometimes get information back. And we have to be really careful on what we're able to share because of our anonymity promise. but we do get sort of stories back to say, yes, this piece of information did go on to, you know, get drugs off the street or whatever it might be, which is great for us to know that our service is useful and helping make communities safer. just on that note, have you got any good case examples? I know obviously anonymously, but have you got anything that as a team, you kind of look at and you go, do you know what? That was great. That really worked. But obviously because of our anonymity promise and the fact that we've had that promise for 40 years, we will never break it. So it can be really hard to share those real life stories, but police have told us in the last year that we've actually helped solve and prevent over 26,000 crimes. So that's through crimes and fearless. Obviously, as Georgie mentioned, police forces are super busy. They're out there solving the crimes. So coming back to us with that feedback is obviously not a priority. So we actually estimate that our impact is way more than double than that. But that is kind of some of the feedback that we've had already. So, you know, we've helped prevent over 26,000 crimes with the information that's being shared through our charity. So some of the numbers just really help to highlight actually how important our service is for lots of people out there for various different reasons. They will not or cannot go to the police. So having that extra option of being an independent charity where they can be. 100 % anonymous through that process really does encourage people to speak up. So the numbers really do speak for themselves. But on that, yeah, we're talking about a minimum of 26,000 crimes that have been prevented, but that's also, that's a minimum of 26,000 victims who have been protected. As a bare minimum, if we're just saying that per crime, there is one victim, which often we know there is much, much wider than that. And even wider than that, if we're looking at impact on family or impact on community, you you start sort of quadrupling that out and actually it becomes massive in terms of that impact, isn't it? So like say, 26,000, which is a big number anyway, that you know about. Probably a lot bigger than that, probably double that. But then kind of exponentially when you look at the wider impact on victims and family and community as well. So yeah, really good to hear that. But yeah, Georgie, have you got anything you're able to share? Yeah, so a couple of headlines and obviously we can share the link to the impact report, but we've got an anonymous tip off for a man in possession of a loaded crossbow, receiving the information from Crime Stoppers, police were able to apprehend the suspect and during the operation, officers recovered some weapons and also a stolen quad bike. We've got cannabis plants worth around 275,000 seized in Skunthor, hidden child abuse revealed thanks to information from Crime Stoppers, domestic abuse suspect arrested. We've got people being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. yeah. Not more stories like this, but there's a real mix. And I think that goes back to Lauren's point of saying that we can take information about any crime. Yeah. There's only so many stories and real life cases we can share. A lot of our work is impact is hard to measure. Prevention, you know, we can't say that because of what we're doing, we're stopping them, but we hope that the information helps them to make informed good choices. Ultimately, especially with fearless and young people, it's that ripple effect, knowing that we're here as an option for them and we start thinking about the reasons for speaking up. And it's not just the victims, but it's the families of the victims and the people in their communities. So yeah, lots of stories. Unfortunately, we can't share them all, but they're there. No, no, no, no, it's good just to get a flavor though. And it is a real mix. Do you see sort of common themes coming through though? I themes that arise or really common sort of contacts calls that you get coming through on particular topics. Last time I asked for some information about the most reported crimes, drug possession and drug dealing and that kind of thing was one of the highest ones being reported. Right. I guess, would you see that kind of in line with raising concerns around county lines and more of that kind of rise of that criminal exploitation? Or do you think it's just, it's always been there in terms of that reporting and a concern there? It's hard to say, isn't it? Because, you know, like I say, we don't take any information from anybody who they are, or we don't take any of their personal information. We just want to know about the crime information they've got. at the end of the day, as long as they are able to give us the information, that's kind of all that matters that we're there for that. It's difficult to kind of recognize trends. Obviously, one thing that crime stoppers do do is at times we do offer rewards for information. At times there might be high profile cases and we will offer a reward for information. We don't do that for the fearless service, that's just for crime stoppers. So obviously at those times we might see a spike in the number of reports we are receiving. But again, we take information from about all crimes. clarify on the rewards, that's only something that is offered through CrimeStuffers main service and it's not something we currently offer through Fearless. So that's not something that's available and for young people. With those rewards, I think it's worth mentioning that most people don't claim the reward, which I think highlights the fact that people just want to do the right thing. Yes, the rewards get advertised sometimes when it's a high profile case, you know, most of the time people then aren't actually claiming them. So people do just want to do the right thing and keep their community safe. Again, it's like that's why we're here. You just remind me, I've just read a book recently called Humankind, which is really interesting. I won't bore you with it now, but it's kind of debunking a lot of these kind of myths that we see about society and what drives us in society. And often people are seen as quite selfish beings that kind of looking out for ourselves and we're motivated by money and that sort of thing. Whereas actually that's a load of rubbish. And yeah, when you look at actually what motivates you, it was really interesting to you say that, Georgia, because actually... What that was saying is what motivates people is that sense of community is actually about doing the right thing, is about caring for other people. Even though we might put up rewards for things or give people bonuses at work, that's not really what is an incentive for them. So it's really nice to hear that. And I think to be fair, often in my view, young people get a really bad rap, you know, in terms of the way they're seen, they're viewed. Actually, do you know what? The vast majority of young people out there, they're amazing. They really are. often we, as adults, I think we might see... young people are something separate to adults. They're not us, apart from me of course, because I'm still young. But we see them as something separate and don't have the same values of us and everything. But they absolutely do, if not more so in some areas. So I think really nice to hear that, that even though there are financial incentives, uh the majority aren't actually close. Do you know what else I just wanted to share? Because I found it, I don't know if I found it surprising, but certainly I found it is on the end of our reporting form on the Feelers website, for a short period, I think it was a few four months, maybe something like that. We gave people filling out the option at the end to complete a short survey, anonymous of course. And we wanted to know just how they'd found out about Feelers, why they decided to use our service that day and also how long they'd known about the service. Over 70%. of people that filled it out had used our service within a week of knowing about Fearless. And unless coincidentally they witnessed a crime or knew about crime that week, I think it goes to show that actually probably young people knew about something and then didn't know what to do with it or maybe holding onto it. And then they acted very quickly once they knew there was an option for them to speak up anonymously and keep themselves out of it. And I think that goes back to your point of saying like, they do want to do something, they want to do the right thing and we want to empower them to be able to do that and give them that voice. So I think it comes back to yes, they do care. don't know if this is just, but young people I think nowadays, they're a lot more sort of like active even like social media and talking about issues they care about. I feel, I don't know if anyone else agrees, but. Yeah, no, I agree. No, it is good to see. say a lot of young people get a bad rep, but I think that's completely unjustified. Ready to go? Yeah. I wanted to pick up as well, Lauren, in particular, you've mentioned about an... I'm never going to be able to say this... Thank you. And you've mentioned that a few times, you talk about the pledge. We often talk about confidentiality with young people and not being able to promise confidentiality, but you've mentioned something different and that sort of pledge around that, which I'm not going to say because I can't say it. But what does that actually mean in terms of anonymous reporting? And what's the difference I guess between that and confidentiality for anybody listening to this and maybe professional working with a young person so they can give those assurances, those messages across. So when we're talking about confidentiality and anonymity there is a difference. So obviously when we're talking about keeping someone's information confidential, it means that we have the information, but we're not necessarily going to share it. Obviously, of course, you know, when we're working with young people, you know, there will be situations where a professional might say, you can talk to me in confidence, this will be confidential unless you tell me something that means that you're at home and then I may need to pass that information on. So that means that obviously they have some personal information about that person. Anonymity is different in the fact that we don't have that personal information to pass on. So, you know, when someone is completely anonymous, their identity is completely unknown. You know, obviously, when we're talking about our fearless or crime suffer service, we aren't asking those questions. We're not asking name, age, gender, where they live, what school they go to, anything like that at all. We just want to know the crime information that they have. And that is the difference. And that is hopefully... the unique part of our service that allows people to perhaps share information that they have been holding on to because of that fear of repercussion, perhaps if they go to the police or if they go to a trusted adult. Someone knows that they've got that information. They may be concerned about some of the repercussions of that. But the whole thing about anonymity obviously means that no one knows they've shared that information. The only way that someone's going to know a young person has given information to fearless is if they actually killed them themselves. So there is a difference between confidentiality and anonymity. Essentially, it's all about what information you have about a person. And we, as a charity, we physically don't have any way to have that information. You know, our systems are also designed to protect people's identity. That is our main aim. When people contact us, whether that be through the website or the phone line, we can't trace or track IP addresses, email addresses, phone numbers. They're all scrambled within the system. Once information comes through from a person, it is then put into a report by our highly trained contact centre staff. Once that report is then passed on, it's deleted, it disappears. So we have no way of accessing it again. So it's really important that we keep telling everyone about our anonymity promise because we want young people to trust in our service. Obviously, we would always encourage if young people are happy to go to the police. or they are able to speak to a trusted adult, then of course we would always recommend that or encourage that first. But we also want them to be aware that actually fearless is also another choice for those situations where actually that isn't possible. Because unfortunately there will be situations where young people just don't have those options. So we want to be that extra option to ensure that information is being shared. But it's interesting because I'm just thinking as you're talking and it's quite a hard line of this is what we are and this is what we're not and this is what we do and this is what we don't. And I can see potentially some people sort of questioning that and going from a safeguarding perspective saying well actually is that really safeguarding, is that really protecting a child? Which the aim of Fearless and Crime Stoppers will be to safeguard victims. However I think for me two things, one the fact that like we said right at the start of this that you are very clear about what Fearless is. And actually you're not there as an emergency service. You're not there to safeguard per se individuals, but you will link young people in with those support routes, with victim support, with child line if necessary. But actually I think having that really clear distinction say actually this is about crime. And in a way, I'm probably going to say this very wrong really, but it's not about the individual, it's about the crime. actually being very clear about that messaging, but by doing that, giving some real confidence. around it because we know when there's ambiguity, particularly with young people and fear and let's face it some young people are genuinely at severe risk here. There have been a lot sadly of young people who have died who have been seriously seriously harmed so actually to give those really clear assurances to say let's be black and white about this, this is what we are and this is what we do. And these are the assurances that we will give you around that. I think it's really important to give that really clear messaging, to give that confidence. Cause like I we don't want any ambiguity around that. I might be laboring the point here, but so just to kind of be very clear with everybody listening to this, when a young person contacts you, or they phone up, you're not going to be asking for names or date of birth or addresses, anything at all. And actually even further than that, you can't get IP addresses or... any details whatsoever from anybody. I think if anybody's listening to this, talking to a young person, it's a really important message to get across. It is 100 % anonymous and a kind of one way information sort of coming in. Absolutely correct. And I'd even add a third point in there to say if a young person accidentally gives us information about who they are, that will be stripped out before a report is created. So like there's an extra barrier of protection there for young people if they accidentally start telling us about who they are or they say something like, I'm giving information about my neighbour who lives at this address, which makes that very obvious who they are, that will be taken out. So our contact centre staff have got training and I think there's three layers, Lauren, that the forms go through before the report is passed on. So yeah, there's multiple layers of protection in there. And then also if they do decide to use the phone line, the phone call will not come up on the phone bill. So there's another layer of protection there. We talked about being able to report things anonymously. And I imagine by the point that a young person actually gets around to getting in contact with you, it's kind of suddenly like, right, finally I've kind of, I wouldn't say got off my chest, but you know, I've kind of that weight off my shoulders is kind of there to some extent. but I guess it would still be playing on their minds coming away from it. Do you feel sometimes there's an expectation that they're going to get feedback from it or they get contacted back to say, okay, well this is it or if they don't see it, I guess there's a risk of potentially losing faith in fearless or the police and everybody else if they've finally disclosed something and they don't see that immediate like, brilliant. Okay. I can see the police have turned up now to deal with it. How do you kind of respond to that? The thing is firstly the bravery and the courage that it takes for a young person to get to the point where they're passing on, that's huge. So we want them to know firstly that any small piece of information is worth speaking up about. It could be the missing piece of a jigsaw that the police are waiting for that's going to potentially solve the crime. So any tiny piece of information, and I would add to that whilst giving as much detail as possible, so you know including things like street names, locations, the town that it's happening in, so as much detail as is valuable. Once that information is passed on, of course we have no way of getting back in touch with the young person to let them know what's happening. The police also probably aren't going to tell us what's happening and I think if they don't see an immediate response it doesn't mean that nothing is happening. So the police may be investigating, this might be part of a bigger case, so the police need to find more information on before they can act and so I think... We want to reassure people that they've done the right thing. Speaking up about crime can never be the wrong thing. Not speaking up could mean that the thing that they're talking about and reporting continues happening. So they've done the right thing. They've been brave. They've spoken up. And I think, no, that every single piece of information and every report that we pass on is taken seriously and it's with the police to investigate. And they may not see an immediate reaction to that, but the police will be investigating and pulling a case together. So it's still there, it is still being acted on, it's still being received. You may not see an immediate blues and twos suddenly come flying down the road, but it is there, it has been received, it is being acted upon. Exactly. uh one of our message we talk a lot about what it means to be an active bystander and how you know intervening safely can have a real impact on what the cause of what could happen next but at the same time we're not asking young people to be heroes we just want them to think about what it means to be a good friend so actually that information that you've passed on you may not necessarily see a sudden result actually you may never hear anything about it again but just knowing that you've been that good friend in that moment is really important and We admire all young people that are brave enough to come through and give the information they've got because we recognise every single young person's situation is going to be unique and a lot of those situations may be very difficult. just being thinking about what it means to be that good friend is really important. And yeah, we are always grateful that people are brave enough to give that information. I think we talked about adults or professionals talking to young people about that. Are there any ways that schools or youth services or safeguarding teams or anybody at all can promote fearless? Lauren, I think you mentioned earlier about posters and things like that. What are the best ways that they can promote fearless? So there's a number of different ways that essentially professionals working with young people can embed Fearless into the work that they do. So we have got lots of free resources on the website. So on the Fearless.org website, there is a whole section for professionals. And within that part of the website, there is a whole page of our resources. So we have free posters available to order. If people work somewhere where young people are regularly visiting, we do recommend ordering them for free and we'll send them out to you. We've also got a number of other free resources that are available to download. So we've got educational booklets that cover different topics like snitching and the bystander approach, counter-liance, knife crime, other crime types. We have a pack of Fearless Playing Cards. So they are a pack of cards with lots of different scenarios on them. And they ask basically, what would you do in those different scenarios? So they're a really good conversation starter. know, some of these conversations about crime can be really difficult. So they're a good tool to kind of start some of the conversations. And there's lots of other free resources on there. Other ways to embed Fearless. So particularly if people work in a school, we know that the IT security is really hot, which is how it should be. But we just want to make sure that Fearless is one of those secure websites that young people can access. Actually, a computer or a laptop at school might be the only way a young person can. see that website, so making sure that's on the secure website list is really important to us. We are on all social media platforms, so following us on social media, sharing our campaign, sharing our messages to make sure we're reaching as many young people as we possibly can is amazing. We often run professional sessions, so we run national professional sessions all about what the fearless service is. We talk about snitching and the bystander approach. how to talk to young people about snitching and those online sessions run quarterly, they are completely free. So if a professional whose work with young people wants to find out more about us in a lot more detail, then we really do recommend joining one of those sessions. Those sessions give a great opportunity for professionals to meet and share good practice or knowledge and information as well. You know, we're not the experts on everything. So it's really great opportunity for people to share kind of knowledge as well there. Other things they can do, so if people are regularly sending out parent newsletters or things like that and they want to share information about Fearless within that, professionals can get in touch with us and we can provide support around providing like wording and logos to include in that and essentially just letting young people know that the service is there for them as well, you know, as we said earlier. Those trusted relationships that professionals already have with the young people they're working with are really important and they can really help us spread that fearless message and encourage young people to at least think about the service. You know, they might not need to use the fearless service now, but if they know about it and something happens, they know how to access it because of the support of those professionals who have the knowledge about fearless. So there's lots of ways that people can get involved. If there's other organisations as well, we often... partner with other organisations. You know, we've mentioned that actually what we do is we provide a safe place for people to report crime anonymously, but there's so many other amazing charities and organisations out there that are doing the safeguarding and various other things. They might be the crime experts on particular crime types, but we often do partner with other charities and organisations. no one charity organisation has got the answers for everything. So the partnership work is really key. So if there are kind of charities or organisations out there who think that they've got an idea or a way that they could partner with us, they can get in touch with us and we can discuss that as well. lots of ways. Yeah, no, it's great to hear and I love that creativity. often we think about, okay, you've got some posters. There's nothing wrong with posters, posters are great, but it's great to hear that kind of imagination, that creativity around things like the playing cards and stuff like that. And so yeah, all available, fearless.org. Go and check them out. There's a whole professional section there. There is a page there for parents as well, I think. And a page there obviously for young people. And there's loads of information on there and loads of resources to tap into. And like you say, those workshops. really good opportunity to come together and talk with loads of other people from around the country about some creative ways of working and sort of helping to prevent harm to children, young people and to adults as well. So I'm just thinking just to kind of round us off then, and if you've got one message you want to really get across from this to professionals about Fearless, what would it be? What would be your big takeaway for everybody? I mean, I think, as Lauren said, we can't do this on our own. No organisation can do everything. And so we are very grateful for anyone who is able to help us spread our message. As we said earlier, we want every single young person to know about us. We wouldn't recommend that with the first point of call, we want young people to speak up, whether that's to a trusted adult, hopefully first and foremost, parent, carer, teacher, sports coach, whoever it might be. But we want them to know that we're here. They might not need us now. We wish that we didn't need to exist. But the more young people that know about us, the more that we can get the message out there, the more that we can hopefully work together and help young people to feel empowered to speak up, to know that there's things they can do to help keep themselves, their friends, the people they care about safe. As we said, it's not about them, it's about the information they have. And as much as we can encourage professionals to work with young people to sort of separate that information, we talk a lot about encouraging young people to be good friends. So to think about how... they're doing is going to protect someone else. As well as taking information from young people, we also talk a lot about how we give information. So social media is a minefield, there is so much stuff out there and we really want to become and be known for being a trusted source, not only for the information we're giving but also that signposting to other trusted organisations. Our website has got loads of information on, know, we're talking about what the law states about crime, the signs young people might look out for, and if they do spot them, like what do they do with it, where do they need to go? And then we've got lists of organisations who might be able to offer that advice, support, and like the wraparound stuff that we're unable to give. Yeah, I think for me, that's the main thing is just thank you and let's keep going and help and spread the word. Absolutely, no thank you. Thank you both and thank you for the whole of Crimestoppers for the work you do because it is so essential. Ideally, you we wouldn't want it there and certainly want everybody to explore other avenues if there are options, but just to have it there as an option, which I think is absolutely invaluable. yeah, anything we can do to help, let me know because we'd love to do some more work with you and if you've got some campaigns running or anything new, let us know. We can get you back here and we can do another recording. Thank you. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, guys. It's been great talking to you and getting your expertise on this. And I know for a lot of people listening to this, it'll be really useful for them because I think it is often the question is, OK, great. There's all this stuff for professionals. What about the young people? If they're asking us what's available to them. So it's so nice to hear that and be able to understand that a lot better than we did before. Thank you so much, guys. Really appreciate your time and best of luck with everything moving forward. Pleasure. Thank you. As always. If you'd like to find out more details on the topics discussed in today's episode, please go to the SSCP website at Somerset SafeguardingChildren.org.uk or by following any of the links in this episode's description. If you enjoy listening to the Peapod, we'd really appreciate it if you did take that time to follow or subscribe to us on your chosen platform or even better, leave us a review to let other people know about it and make sure to let your colleagues know about this podcast and encourage them to join us here as well. It really does help to spread the word. If you have any questions or comments arising from today's episode or would like to be involved in future episodes, we would love you to get in touch with us at theppod at summerset.gov.uk. Once again, I'd like to a huge thank you to both my guests today, Georgie and Lauren from Crime Stoppers Fearless. And as always, I'd like to thank you for listening. My name is Steve McAbee and I'm the training manager for the Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership. And I look forward to you joining us again next time at the P-Pod. Let's work together to help keep children safe.