Thames Valley Partnership
“protecting victims, supporting offenders and their families”
The Thames Valley Partnership works in partnership with the statutory, private and voluntary sectors to provide long-term sustainable solutions to the problems of crime and social exclusion. We work to protect victims and reintegrate offenders. Our strength is in collaborative working and integrated approaches across sectors, particularly linking Criminal Justice services to voluntary sector and Local Authority providers.
Our broad spectrum of work includes programmes around the needs of families of offenders, work in the field of domestic abuse, support for victims, restorative justice, community cohesion, mental health issues, early interventions & initiatives around young people and arts related projects.
Find out more about the different aspects of Our Work.
News
A visit by the Mayor!
Partnership staff were delighted to welcome the Mayor of Buckingham, Jon Harvey, who took time out of his busy schedule to visit our offices in Chilton earlier this week. We are grateful for his interest in our work and his encouraging words in his blog.
GDPR
Lots of companies will be contacting you about changes in data protection regulations that come into force on the 25th May. The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) are designed to give you more control over how your data is used. Protecting your personal information has always been very important to the Partnership – we have been reviewing all our processes and updating procedures where necessary to ensure that our high standards are upheld and we are compliant with the new regulations.
Our updated Privacy Notice at the foot of this page explains how we collect, use, store, share and protect your information.
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Restorative Justice programme awarded TPQM
The Thames Valley Restorative Justice Service (TVRJS) has recently achieved the Training Provider Quality Mark (TPQM), a quality mark awarded by the Restorative Justice Council to restorative training providers who meet the RJC’s rigorous and exacting criteria.
“Through achieving the TPQM, Thames Valley Restorative Justice Service has shown its commitment to providing high quality restorative practice training. I would like to congratulate all the team members for their accomplishment.”
Chris Straker, the RJC’s interim Chief Executive
Find out more about TPQM or visit the TVRJS website
Supporting PACE Aylesbury
Well Done Jo & Helen!
Partnership colleagues Jo and Helen survived their 18 mile sponsored walk from Dunstable Downs to Wendover on the weekend, in aid of the PACE charity. Between them they raised over £300 for this great charity. PACE provides first class education, therapy and support for children aged 0-18 with cerebral palsy, related sensory motor disorders and development delay, and support and guidance for their families.
WELL DONE TVRJS!
Published earlier this week, a report by HMI Inspectorate of Probation on the thematic inspection of Probation Supply Chains commends the Partnership’s restorative justice service (TVRJS) on the ‘high standard’ of its work. The full 75 page, which was highly critical and where the probation supply chain is described as ‘bleak and exasperating’, contained only a couple of other examples of good practice. Read the full report here and in particular see page 30 …
” There were few unusual or niche services identified that were addressing more-specialist needs or delivering innovative practice. The strongest example was Thames Valley Partnership’s ‘facilitating restorative justice conferencing’ service. This provider was a well-regarded and established organisation, undertaking difficult and delicate work in complex cases. It had a history of working with probation services over many years. Its delivery model and the extent of its provision had been altered, not necessarily for the better, because of its contractual terms with the CRC, and these were set to change further. Within the cases we inspected, its management oversight, commitment to staff training and delivery of restorative justice were of a high standard”.
SEE PAGE 30
Good practice example: Restorative justice conferencing in Thames Valley
Jim received an 18-month custodial sentence for a bomb hoax at his local hospital, having been taken to the accident and emergency department because of concerns about his level of alcohol intake. On release from prison, he was referred to a restorative justice worker, who made extensive enquiries to identify the staff involved in the incident who would be willing to participate in a conference. An initial meeting took place and Jim was supported through this challenging process. The restorative justice worker kept the responsible officer up to speed with progress and updated the records appropriately. Alongside this work, the responsible officer ensured that the other elements of Jim’s supervision plan were completed, including attendance at a local substance misuse agency, referrals to an ETE intervention and a home visit.
Partnership win bid to offer new Thames Valley wide service!
We are delighted to announce that the Partnership has been successful in a recent tender to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for a new provision – the Emotional Support and Advocacy Service for victims across the Thames Valley. The two year contract sits well with and complements our other victims’ programmes (such as the work of the Restorative Justice team) and means we will be one of the main providers of victims’ services in the Thames Valley. This will be a major new strand of the work for the Partnership and we are delighted to have been selected and very excited to be developing this very important service which will commence in April. For a full press release by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner Thames Valley click here.
Hear Partnership Director, Patsy Townsend, speaking about the new service on local radio station Mix 96.
HRH Duchess of Cornwall thinks TecSOS is “pure magic”.
TecSOS Mgr John Liversidge with Met Commissioner Cressida Dick and HRH Duchess of Cornwall
The hard work, enthusiasm and leadership of the Partnership’s TecSOS team was highlighted last week during a visit of HRH Duchess of Cornwall to the Metropolitan Police. The Duchess was welcomed by Met. Police Commissioner Cressida Dick at the force’s headquarters and received a briefing on the TecSOS project from John Liversidge, the Partnership’s TecSOS Project Manager. The Duchess learned at first hand how the TecSOS programme is changing the lives of those affected by domestic abuse and described the technology behind this, which was developed by the Vodafone Foundation, as “pure magic”.
The visit, which was later tweeted from Clarence House Twitter account, was featured on Channel 5 news and in national media. If you would like to learn more on this visit please follow the media links below:
Channel 5 News
Telegraph – Duchess of Cornwall hails ‘magic’ of secret panic alarms for domestic abuse victims
Daily Mail
The Sun
Vodafone’s technology blog
THANK YOU for supporting the Big Give Christmas Challenge !!
A huge ‘Christmas Thank You’ to everyone who supported the Partnership Big Give Christmas Challenge. With your very kind support we reached our match funded target and raised over £8,000 which will provide support for our OOTBox social enterprise project.
How will your support make a difference?
- £20 will allow one person to attend a 2 hr training session
- £50 will pay for us to service a donated sewing machine
- £300 will pay for us to purchase an overlocker
- £500 will pay for our workshop rent for a month
In helping vulnerable people back into living a full life it is vital that they find an occupation which will enable them to gain self-confidence.
” OOTBox does just that and is well worthy of support”
Terry Waite CBE
“The sessions are really fun, with lots of variety. I love the people, thank you for everything”
Katie, participant
Thank You and Merry Christmas
The Partnership team ….making a splash!
Partnership staff enjoyed a day of team building activity out of the office on the 14th September. Braving gathering storm clouds at Milton Keynes the team spent the morning cycling and sampling a variety of water sports at Willen Lake. The afternoon was spent problem solving at the Escape Room – quite a challenge! As the staff team is broadly situated across the Thames Valley and does not have the opportunity to get together very often this was a great chance to share news and ideas.
RSQM and APS renewed!
The Partnership is delighted to announce the renewal of two of its key programme accreditations.
The RSQM award to Thames Valley Restorative Justice Service (TVRJS) was recently renewed for a further 3 years. TVRJS were one of the first organisations in the UK to receive the Restorative Justice Council’s Restorative Service Quality Mark (RSQM) back in 2014. Feedback from the recent assessment highlighted the service’s strengths in a number of areas including the strong and effective working relationships with partners and the work of the senior team members which has enhanced the quality of the RJ processes being delivered.
On another note, the New Leaf mentoring team also saw their Approved Provider Standard being renewed. The APS logo is a national quality standard mark which is recognised by funders and commissioners as evidence of safe and competent practice. For a project such as New Leaf, it is the equivalent of an Oscar!
Well done to both teams for all their hard work!
Our RJ Ambassadors
Our Restorative Justice Ambassadors have been through RJ themselves and support us by telling their own stories to key audiences to spread the word about restorative justice. We are very grateful to them for their time and commitment to our work; their stories are so powerful and have much more impact than anything we can say on their behalf. They also take part in media interviews for us from time to time.
View one of our Ambassador video clips
Funding Success for New Leaf!
We are delighted to announce that New Leaf have been successful in securing £75,000 funding from the Lloyds Bank Foundation to allow them to offer longer community support to New Leaf mentees – the funding will be split across three years.
We are even more delighted to announce that they have also received £15,000 match funding from the Big Lottery in the first year and have additionally been successful with a bid to another lottery backed scheme, Awards for All, to undertake a scoping study looking into developing a potential housing and enterprise scheme for prisoners on release.
Award for TVRJS and HMP Bullingdon!
HMP Bullingdon was recently presented with an Award by the Chris Donovan Trust for being a Restorative Prison. The Chris Donovan Trust was set up by Ray and Vi, the parents of Chris Donovan who was killed by a gang of young men some years ago. Ray and Vi insisted on meeting the men who killed their son and have since visited prisons and schools talking about their experiences. Read more …
Celebrity Visit for OOTBox!
Clients and volunteers at Alana House in Reading received an unexpected boost recently – in the form of a visit by Patrick Grant who attended one of the craft sessions to learn more about the social enterprise and cast a critical eye over some of the ladies’ handiwork. Patrick, who is a judge on the BBC’s popular Sewing Bee series owns two clothing labels (Saville Row tailors Norton & Son, and ready to wear label E Tautz & Sons) and is also involved with Community Clothing, a manufacturers cooperative which supports the UK clothing industry.
Patrick enjoyed a relaxed visit, chatting to 2 ladies from Alana House and New Leaf volunteer Noreen before going on to visit Springhill and Grendon where he met one the Governors.
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