Dr Stuart Lawrence Speaks At Safety Centre Charity

Stuart Lawrence Speaks At The Safety Centre About Empowering Children & Young People With Lifesaving Knife Crime Education

Today we were thrilled to welcome Dr Stuart Lawrence, the younger brother of Stephen Lawrence, to our centre today. He spoke about the vital importance of promoting early intervention knife crime education across the region and beyond through the Safety Centre Charity, the region’s leading and the world’s first safety education charity. Stuart shared his story, experiences and messages of hope and tolerance. We were also joined by Assistant Chief Constable Katy Barrow-Grint from Thames Valley police talking about knife crime and how Thames Valley police is preparing for the Knife Angel coming to Milton Keynes this December.

The Importance of Knife Crime Safety Education

We were excited to invite Dr Lawrence to talk with community leaders from across the region about the vital importance of early intervention knife crime education. Our role to support the development of flourishing communities within our region and beyond starts by responding to emerging safety trends. Unfortunately, knife crime is now an issue that children and young people need to be able to understand from an early age. This is why we’ve developed our early intervention knife crime safety education initiative in schools and at our education centre Hazard Alley. The programme talks about the choices young people have and the impact of these choices. Our education specialists create safe spaces for life saving conversations and education, in a meaningful, sensitive, age-appropriate way.

Dr Lawrence said:

“Early intervention is so important, at the end of the day the only person you can control is you and you need to have the tools to make safe choices. Education can be the most powerful tool in the world and the earlier we can give people the tools to be safe, the more it helps. We need to explain to young people that time is precious, and life is precious. One fifth of knife crime is committed by 10-17 year olds and there’s a lot more we can do early on to explain to children the importance of life and that there’s always an amicable way of solving things.”

Assistant Chief Constable from Thames Valley Police Katy Barrow-Grint said:

“Seven out of the eleven murders in Thames Valley in the last year have come about because of a knife. I’m sure you’ll agree with me enough is enough. The preservation of life and working to address root causes and helping to save lives from being lost to violence but the wider impact in our communities and offenders themselves must be integral to everything we do as a partnership.”

Maya, Chief Executive of the Safety Centre said:

“We’re delighted to be joined by Dr Stuart Lawrence to talk about his experiences and the vital role the Safety Centre plays in educating children and young people through our early knife crime intervention programme. This education initiative can save lives through creating safe spaces for impactful immersive learning and vital conversations about the consequences of being involved in knife crime. These conversations and sessions are potentially lifesaving and I’m proud to be leading a team of education specialists delivering pioneering safety education across our region.”

To find out more about the Safety Centre charity and how you can support our work contact us on info@safetycentre.co.uk. To talk to us about our education packages and how your school can get involved contact our education team on educationteam@safetycentre.co.uk or call 01908 263009.