Prevent Toolkits: Generating Community Support and Utilising Formers

Dr Gordon Clubb

School of Politics and International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences

Relevant ESRC Discipline: Political Science

The UK government’s Prevent programme, charged with preventing violent extremism, has faced consistent criticism from the public. Likewise, the government’s de-radicalisation programme for re-integrating terrorist offenders has faced criticism in the last year. Public support matters for counter-terrorism policies to be successful yet only recently has research sought to understand how the wider public and the media understand these policies. The aim of the project is to work with Prevent Leeds City Council to develop a toolkit which can support successful engagement with the media and wider public. Of course, there are many pressures facing practitioners within the CVE landscape, therefore the knowledge exchange will be crucial in identifying the institutional and resource restraints in communicating with the public and find solutions based on the evidence-base. Furthermore, the project will engage with the partner to impact upon their practices involving former extremists within interventions and outreach activities. The evidence-base for using formers is evolving, despite the controversy of their utilisation. There exist no guidelines on how to use formers and little in the way of evaluation. The project will develop a toolkit which addresses the needs, aiding the partner in maximising the use of formers while maintaining important safeguards.