County Lines and the power of the badge: the LFC Foundation’s approach to youth intervention

Francis Hargreaves, Paula Carroll, Grace Robinson, Sean Creaney*, Andrew O’Connor

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (journal)peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
217 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the purpose and outline the key features of Liverpool Football Club Foundation’s County Lines (CL) programme and how principles of collaboration and co-production can be implemented to educate children at risk of entering the youth justice system. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reviews the findings from a 12-week CL intervention programme in 14 secondary schools in the Liverpool City Region between 2021 and 2022. The programme was designed in collaboration with funders, partners and participants and aimed to improve knowledge of, and change attitudes towards CL and its associated harms, including knife crime and child exploitation. Findings: Knowledge and attitude changes were measured across 12 indicators, with positive changes recorded for each indicator. Perhaps of most interest to those working in the sector was the recorded success in obtaining consistent attendance from beginning to end with very little erosion of engagement. This suggests that the content and method of delivery was successful in engaging harder to reach young people to make positive change. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to examine how collaboration and co-production (two of the five principles of the Serious Violence Strategy 2018) can be implemented by a football charity and its partners to educate children in a local community on the harms of CL.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)91-105
Number of pages15
JournalSafer Communities
Volume22
Issue number2
Early online date1 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Mar 2023

Keywords

  • child exploitation
  • knife crime
  • violence
  • social action
  • voluntary sector
  • secondary schools
  • intervention
  • marginalisation
  • education
  • participation
  • child first

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