London is outside the national network of Community Safety Partnerships. Instead it has Safer Neighbourhood Boards funded via the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. The Norwood Community Safety Partnership (NCSP) is a local pilot, co-hosted by the Lambeth Safer Neighbourhood Board and Norwood Forum as an unfunded voluntary partnership of equals. One of the key NCSP roles is to help participants secure funding for specific projects.

The strategy of the NCSP is to use volunteers with relevant experience to facilitate practical local co-operation across professional and funding boundaries between local community groups, charities and businesses and organisations (including Council, NHS and Police) which are undergoing radical change in a period of increasing austerity which is expected to last for years not months.

The NCSP Steering Group includes local councillors and representatives from:

• the Safer Neighbourhood Panels and Area Neighbourhood Watch groups for the wards of Gipsy Hill, Knight’s Hill, St Martin’s and West Dulwich.
• the local Primary Care Networks , Hills, Brooks and Dales and Croxted and their service provider, including community pharmacies and collective operations like the Well Centre.
• the Business Improvement District and local businesses, including Housing Associations and other Landlords, care and other service providers.
• schools and youth engagement groups, including High Trees and Rathbone.  

Police Officers, NHS staff, Council officials and others (including national and pan-London organisations supporting local pilots for wider initiatives) are invited as guests/observers.  

The steering group reviews progress with projects and deliverables on a rolling basis (for updating the website as necessary and reporting in a newsletter) with a more formal review once a quarter. Programmes and projects are delivered by consortia of participants and guests/observers. They “report”, as necessary, to those providing their funding. They “inform” the partnership.

The priorities so far identified include:

• Producing and linking the web pages below to more detailed signposting website(s) maintained by locally supervised work experience trainees (e.g. customer service or digital marketing apprentices).
• Additional School Patrols and Safe Havens: to be operational before the nights draw in.
• Safe study spaces and access to work experience and training: priority subjects include care and customer service, hospitality, digital, cyber, construction, conservation, horticulture.
• Piloting engagement (including GPs and Neighbourhood Watch) with programmes such as the follow up to Behind the Lines (Herne Hill, Dulwich and Norwood was cited in the presentation).
• Piloting early education/intervention to address Child financial exploitation perhaps linked to support for converged action in support of the merger of Red Thread and Catch 22

Further sources of advice, guidance and support is elsewhere on this website and can be found listed below; this list will be updated as this work is completed:

• Emergency services
• Neighbourhood Safety
• Personal safety and help
• Lambeth Council
• Health and Wellbeing
• Youth Engagement
• Access to Work/Skills   

Please e-mail csp@norwoodforum.org for details and/or an invitation to participate.