'Team of the Year' Nomination

We’re excited to announce that we’ve been shortlisted for ‘Team of the Year’ at the Hull & East Yorkshire Business Awards.

Taking place on the 19 November 2026, the Awards are dedicated to celebrating excellence, innovation and outstanding achievements in the business community. The Team of the Year Award recognises a group of people who have made a huge difference to their organisation, their community or the local economy.

Funded by the Home Office, the core Humber Violence Prevention Partnership (VPP) team works with partners to reduce serious violence by tackling its root causes, intervening early and supporting long-term positive change across Humberside. We focus on creating opportunities for young people, using youth voice to shape decisions and delivering educational campaigns.

Hosted by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside, our violence reduction unit has developed a regional partnership involving local authorities, policing, health services, education, youth justice and voluntary and community organisations. We also provide strategic leadership while helping local Community Safety Partnerships to respond to the needs of their communities.

Jonathan Evison, Chair of the Humber VPP, said: “Over the past four years, the small, dedicated team has made an exceptional contribution to preventing serious violence, strengthening partnership working and creating safer communities across Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire.”

“The team’s ability to unite organisations around a shared ambition is one of its greatest achievements. Serious violence cannot be addressed by one agency acting alone. It requires trusted relationships, shared information and coordinated action across organisations with different responsibilities, priorities and ways of working. Since launching four years ago, the Humber VPP team has created the structures, relationships and shared purpose needed to turn this ambition into an effective regional partnership."

Our team has delivered significant progress against our objectives, including strengthening governance and improving communication between the central partnership and local areas. 81% of surveyed partners said the partnership had become stronger since they became involved, with no respondents reporting that it had become weaker. Overall satisfaction averaged four out of five, and partners particularly valued our collaborative working, shared goals and whole-system approach.

The Humber VPP has also sharpened the focus of commissioned activity by moving away from broad, universal programmes and towards more purposeful interventions for young people who face a greater risk of violence. This reflects our team’s commitment to continuous learning and ensuring that resources are directed where they are most needed and can make the greatest difference.

This positive impact can be seen across our interventions including youth outreach, hospital-based A&E Navigators, sports programmes, relationship violence education and targeted social skills support. Evaluations have identified strong engagement alongside improvements in young people’s confidence, communication, emotional wellbeing, emotional regulation and peer relationships. Youth outreach alone recorded 8,578 engagements, with 88% of surveyed participants rating their enjoyment at eight out of ten or higher.

We have improved how information is collected, analysed and shared across the partnership. This has created a clearer understanding of violence trends, the young people accessing support and the communities or groups that services are not yet reaching. Our team has used this intelligence to inform priorities, strengthen commissioning and improve the monitoring of interventions.

Youth voice has been strengthened in the Humberside through projects such as Youth Connect, Hope Hacks, focus groups, consultation activities and interviews. As a result, young people’s experiences, concerns and aspirations increasingly inform the development of violence prevention activity. Our team has also encouraged improvements in regional safety indicators, including a 10% reduction in serious violence as defined by the Humber VPP, an 11% reduction in police-recorded knife or sharp-object-enabled violence and a fall in relevant hospital admissions from 60 to 55.

Fingers crossed for the 19 November!