Speakers

I have been the Director of the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) since November 2020. I am incredibly passionate about changing lives and making a difference for people in our communities and see this role as a great opportunity to carry on with my passion. Having seen the progress in the unit, there is some fantastic work and interventions taking place which I am proud to be a part of.

In terms of my background, I have been a police officer in West Yorkshire Police for over 27 years and have been in supervisory roles for 19 years across various ranks. As well as all the neighbourhood policing teams across Leeds, I also had in my portfolio a number of multi-agency teams, for example the City centre street support team, the managed area multi-agency team and the Early help partnership hubs. I have extensive experience in local policing and strategic partnerships and had been working in this area across Leeds District for five years prior to joining the VRU.. In that role I worked with strategic partners, third sector, community leaders and volunteers to make communities safe. Having such a broad partnership portfolio means I have been part of a number of partnership boards in Leeds, Children and Adults Safeguarding boards, Health & Well-being board and the Community Safety Partnerships. This has given me a great deal of experience and understanding of partnership structures and arrangements and the great benefits of collaboration.

In relation to my experience with the Violence Reduction agenda, prior to the VRU arrangements I set up and led a strategic partnership group in Leeds to reduce violence and in particularly youth violence given the challenges. I have seen first hand the impacts of violence on families and communities so it is a great pleasure to have such an opportunity to make a difference through the VRU.