What do you think about reformed gang members working in schools?

[NewFriday]

We are seeing more and more of our children affected by and involved in gang activity - leafy mostly affluent area on the other side of the London Green Belt.

We are also getting increasing approaches from ex gang members who have set themselves up as mentors or running workshops, with the aim of reducing children's vulnerability to gangs. They don't come cheap, about £4/500 per day usually.

If they can be effective, it's work that needs doing, but I'm not convinced. e.g. one came in and told us all about the horrors of his early life, but it still sounds quite glamourous to certain students. Then about how much better his life is now he's doing this work - an opportunity that wouldn't have been available to him, if he'd stayed on the straight and narrow since childhood. He'd likely be in some minimum wage job from his background.

It also means we have the prospect of people with convictions ranging from drugs, to weapons to actual murder wanting to work with our children in and out of school.

The murder thing is true. There's one very high profile "mentor" working 121 with students in several local schools who's DBS includes murder. Murder when he was 18, a long time ago, but still. We haven't employed him, but he has complained about our approach to the LA and is bad mouthing us to other schools because we're not supporting our children to learn about gangs the way he thinks we should.

I'm not convinced these are the people we want working with and influencing our children, or am I being unreasonably cynical? The traditional methods don't seem to be reaching them, after all.

This is coming up for discussion in some schools near me.

There have been some familiar names and organisations put forward. However, one striking omission is that all the 'inspirational' speakers with the memorable stories about gang and prison life, and drug use and turning their lives around are men.

I know someone mentioned a woman above but are there women going into schools and telling stories about their gang life, life as a drug courier, being caught up in County Lines etc.? Perhaps how they had children removed by SS or in prison and then recovered access?

@adultchildofalcoholicparents it's because the number of women and girls in or who have been in the criminal justice system is tiny compared to the number of men and boys.

There are more problems with the current lot of teenage girls and young women compared to generations before but still the number caught up in the justice system is still small fraction.

This is a really interesting question I'm glad I found it.

A few thoughts

• op the children won't know what they charge or earn from these sessions - you can ask the people to stop telling the kids if they are. I don't think £500 is a lot - if there's a couple of them it's a day or afternoon but they have to factor in unpaid time for planning and marketing. Probably not a high yearly income.

• it's a bit of a pyramid scheme. Only a few ex gang members will end up where they are, the rest are in prison or dead! Make sure the kids know this. You can ask the organizers if they can only talk about how they moved on from after gangs (and profited from the experience!) or if they key message could be how they could have avoided gang life in the first place, what they wish they'd done instead, and how much better there life would be if they hadn't joined one. If they can't do this then don't have them in your school.

• I think your local authority's youth offending service would be best place to help you get these organizations or potentially you could commission an alternative session from them directly - speak to them about if you can? Or your local authority's DSL lead?

• your careers specialist at school should have an input here. Are there any organizations that can come and talk about alternative to gangs eg mechanics apprenticeships or courses in IT or electrics? Sales like mobile phone shop employees? Those that look and are similar to your at risk students who can be a role model to them

But also have never been in a gang seem like excellent people to come and talk about their jobs? Can you try and get former students in?

I work in a school and
make similar decisions. ime these students need to see such a person regularly and not just a one off session. And that’s where it gets tricky-trying to find a weekly time for everyone and pay accordingly.

That's a safeguarding nightmare

I actually think an organisation like journeyman (uk based I don’t work for them!) would be a better bet potentially. They mentor young men over a longer period of time.

If they're not already in a gang I think there are lots of better options of mentors than ex gang members to do this mentoring

Can your school invest in training up learning mentors?

Another thought - if you have or if you DO get them in, you could do before and after questionnaires with the kids to see if their views and beliefs have changed

@Unexpectedlysinglemum there are some sports charities/clubs that work with schools particularly with young people who are likely to end up in gangs and/or have anti-social behaviour. However you need to find them as most are localised. Examples are football beyond borders and various boxing clubs.

It might be a little out of date but I'd been reading reports by Public Health England (as it then was) that said around a third of those involved in gangs are girls. And that the potential for sex exploitation makes girls vulnerable.

Similarly, a London report estimated similar levels of involvement. I wonder if women's stories are different and somehow don't have the attention-winning drama and redemptive arc? But it sounds like girls are vulnerable, still subject to violence and caught up in levels of criminality that are probably below the high-level dealing/high-profile crimes/gang leader biographies that make the men seem to be inspirational speakers and mentors. (I haven't explained that well.)

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gang_associated_girls.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/27/girls-gangs-sexual-criminal-exploitation-violence

Sorry I should add the point of the sports charities/clubs is not to turn the young people into footballers, boxers or whatever it is to help them with their self-esteem, and to get them to develop self-awareness and emotional regulation plus give them something to do so they stay out of trouble.

Oh and they all mentor girls.

(I remember there was a cycling one near me but I can't remember what it is called. Half the participants were girls.)

I’m absolutely fed up of external ‘experts’ from various different places with zero professionalism or training being given access to impressionable children, allowed to teach whatever, and paid a fortune of taxpayer money for it.

When I’m dictator, only qualified teachers will be allowed to teach our children. And they’ll be paid properly too.

When I'm a dictator 😂😂😂😂😂😂 am stealing this one x

Me too btw

Sounds great!
I'd want to see proper learning objectives and evaluation /impact data for them

We haven't employed him, but he has complained about our approach to the LA and is bad mouthing us to other schools because we're not supporting our children to learn about gangs the way he thinks we should.

I would stay well clear of anyone who does this. Bad mouthing you sounds like a red flag to me.

These types of speakers can be brilliant, but I’d look at established organisations like St Giles’ or smaller charities that are commissioned by the local authority, rather than one man band set ups. They will have done all the necessary checks and have a proper framework they’re working to.

Knowing the history of a small local charity that offers training to schools including through the local authority, I would absolutely say this does not mean they have done the necessary checks, that people going into school are qualified, trained in safeguarding or have DBS checks. It is not difficult to set up a charity, or set yourself up as an expert.

Perhaps girls stories are not as glamorous?

Perhaps girls stories are not as glamorous?

I almost used that phrase. I suppose that the redemptive arc of a girl/woman gang member is harder to see if somebody has to tell the story of having SS protective orders in place, or having children placed into care, even if they managed to re-establish contact later. And being caught up in children sexual exploitation - nobody would want to be a victim on that scale. Nowhere near as engaging as the rise, fall, and redemption of gang leaders or members.

But, I'm concerned if there are few reformed members who speak to girls about things that they seem to know. I don't know if any of the current crop of male lived experience speakers ever detail time spent organising child exploitation beyond low level dealing.

Primary school governor but secondary school parent in an area where gangs are very much an issue. I can see a value for some kind of program but I think it would have to be as part of a larger framework not individual school dealing with individual reformed criminal/gangster. I think part of the problem here is that government policy has been to chip away at central education services' ability to coordinate things, and school budgets are more than tight and down to each individual school.

Some of the posts raise alarm bells. Everyone involved with schools (inc governors as well as staff) has to be trained in and working with safeguarding procedures. I attended a training course a few years ago and the tutor mentioned that a lot of people just assume some things must be safe anyway because people involved in the church or a charity must be nice people, right? His point was that everyone in all organisations, even that church retreat, needs to be aware of safeguarding, everyone needs to be checked.

I think anyone wanting to come in and speak at schools should actually go through safeguarding training and sign up to agreements and policies, which should include things like a social media feed. And perhaps the program needs to have a component aimed at parents, separately.

Obviously this would cost money, but if schools being asked to spend hundreds or thousands on someone who may be totally reformed and have the best intentions, that's not enough. This needs to be part of education but It needs to be done in a way which centres what school students, staff, parents etc need to know and do, and enables people coming into schools to make a decent living, but isn't just driven by the speaker's need to expand their business.

I remember the congregation at our local church getting a basic safeguarding ‘101’ during a service one Sunday. The main bit I remember was; if you are not a parent/carer dropping off or collecting a child, or are not a member of the children’s team in charge of that activity you have no business being there so stay away. (Strangely the congregation didn’t jump up and take offence at the suggestion they could be a threat…). I think people are too often too keen to grant random people access to children. And I wonder if there is an element of ‘be kind’/emotional blackmail with these ‘reformed characters’.

I have worked in a school recently where we had a similar sounding group coming in to mentor our most “at risk” young people. We are in a challenging part of south London so the risks are very present. Most staff were very unimpressed by the impact the so-called mentors had on this group. They became more disengaged from school, more angry with regular teaching staff and we ended up cancelling the programme. Ultimately the men were alternative figures of respect who were telling them they screwed up school but it’s all ok now. That’s not helpful. They allowed behaviours which the school didn’t and we actually had to remove the kids from their subsequent lessons because they would come out of the mentoring so uncooperative.

my view was that putting kids into the sessions reinforced their sense of being a naughty kid at odds with the school. It was like saying “yeah, we expect you to screw up so why not miss some lessons and chat with some bad boys like you”. It would have been much more effective to pay for them to have extra literacy lessons or proper counselling from qualified therapists depending on their particular needs.

I also feel uneasy about this as well.

My DS13 nearly 14 is highly impressionable and had a presentation before the summer from a reformed prisoner who had served a lengthy sentence for a violent crime/drugs. He had only been released 2 years earlier. So no time at all in my opinion to be in any way reformed out in the real world again. Reformed in prison perhaps. Totally different circumstances.

DS did not come home and talk about the changes this man had made or the fact that he couldnt believe what he done he felt almost like he had met a film star and that his life must have been so cool. I think letting these people into schools is very dangerous. And what a huge huge fee as well. Shocking!