Public Health Institute reports

Child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse (CAPVA) is a form of family abuse where a child uses a range of harmful behaviours towards a parent/caregiver. CAPVA can affect any family from any community and can have devastating impacts on an individual’s life, not only for the parent/caregiver but also for the child/young person. In response to growing awareness and local partner concerns regarding CAPVA, in 2022 the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) implemented a multi-agency stakeholder event on CAPVA. The event aimed to raise awareness of CAPVA and share examples of prevention and response approaches, and to facilitate discussions about whether or not further work is needed to ensure local and regional responses to CAPVA meet the needs of children and adolescents and their parents/carers, and the practitioners and multi-agency teams supporting them. Critically, the event highlighted the need to improve understanding of the nature, extent, and impact of CAPVA across Merseyside, current service provision and interventions, and areas for development across the whole system. The MVRP commissioned the Public Health Institute (PHI), Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) to conduct a research study to enhance understanding of CAPVA, and prevention and response approaches across Merseyside. 

Early intervention crime reduction is everybody’s business and investing in crime prevention and early intervention will save money in the long term. The police need support to both prevent crime and also respond to the vulnerabilities which they encounter daily. They cannot do this alone. The root causes of crime and the impacts of crime are cross-cutting issues for multi-agency partners, and as such a whole system public health approach is required. Such an approach takes a life course perspective and considers the roles of various agencies in intervening to reduce the risks of harm, preventing crime, and wider public health issues. This report shows how early intervention crime reduction and preventative approaches, focusing on a public health approach, are being adopted and implemented across various countries and settings, with some evidence of promising impacts. However, this work needs to be accompanied by strong whole systems evaluation using a range of techniques and methods. Communication and dissemination strategies also need to be in place to ensure that practice and lessons learnt are accessible and shared widely, and that the case for investing in prevention is maintained.

Since 2019, Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) have funded the piloting of a Navigator Service delivered by Merseyside Youth Association at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (AHFT) and Liverpool University Foundation Hospital Trust (LUFHT) to prevent youth violence. Navigators are embedded within each acute hospital trust to offer support to young people (10-24 years) who have been affected by violence or identified as at risk of violence. Attendance at acute healthcare settings is viewed as a ‘teachable moment’ when young people may be more likely to consider their life circumstances and engage with support. The programme has three core components (crisis and safety support; stabilisation support; maintenance support) and takes a personalised approach to provide support to young people and refer them into wider support in the community. In July 2021, the MVRP commissioned LJMU to conduct a service evaluation of the early development and implementation of Merseyside Navigator programme. This report presents an update on the programme in year two, following on from the full report published in year one.

In 2023, Liverpool hosted Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine. Despite the lasting popularity of Eurovision, few research studies have examined people’s views on Eurovision and consequently little information is available on its social and public health impacts. An important part of the Eurovision experience, both for visitors to a host city and those who are already resident in local communities, is how individuals engage with entertainment and nightlife during Eurovision celebrations including their positive experiences, health risk behaviours, and experiences of any anti-social behaviour or violence. During Eurovision Liverpool, the Public Health Institute (LJMU) carried out surveys (n=803) with visitors to Liverpool’s nightlife and Eurovision entertainment areas to understand their behaviours, experiences, and views. This report presents key initial findings.

This infographic provides a summary of the findings from the report 'Identifying evidence to support action to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in health' which brings together high-quality reviews from the international literature that provide synthesized evidence about the effects of interventions, programmes and policies on socioeconomic inequalities in health.

Addressing inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups is one of the most important challenges for public health. The impacts of socioeconomic inequalities in health are well described and there is broad agreement that action is needed to reduce them. However, what is less well understood is the extent and scope of the evidence that is available to guide these actions. This report therefore brings together high-quality reviews from the international literature that provide synthesized evidence about the effects of interventions, programmes and policies on socioeconomic inequalities in health.

The Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) has an overarching aim to identify and engage with adult offenders in the criminal justice system who use drugs and/or alcohol, and encourage them towards appropriate treatment services in order to reduce acquisitive crime. The DIP process often begins with the police drug testing adults in custody for specified Class A drugs (crack/powder cocaine and/or opiates) following an arrest or charge. If an individual tests positive, they can be served with a Required Assessment (RA) by the police, which is a compulsory legal sanction requiring the individual to undergo an assessment. This report presents data on drug tests carried out across Merseyside Police’s custody suites showing trends up to the year ending March 2023. It contextualises Merseyside Police drug testing records by providing numbers and trends of adult offenders who use crack/powder cocaine and/or opiates, identified through this key route into DIP. A demographic overview of this cohort and figures for residents of each of the five Merseyside Local Authority areas are also provided.

In 2023 Merseyside Police and the Merseyside Violence Prevention Partnership implemented trauma-informed training sessions with police staff and partners from wider organisations. Public Health Institute, LJMU evaluated the training using a pre and post training survey assessing changes in staff trauma-informed knowledge and attitudes.

MVP is a school-based violence prevention programme, with a particular emphasis on gender-based violence, which aims to increase non-violent bystander intervention through a peer education approach to inform and empower individuals to become proactive bystanders in the face of violence. The peer education model is implemented by training students in Key Stage 4 to be mentors and deliver the MVP programme to Key Stage 3 mentees. For the 2020/21 academic year implementation begun in nine out of the ten pilot schools across Merseyside. The current study aimed to conduct a process and outcome evaluation of the MVP programme being piloted in the ten Merseyside schools to monitor, document and describe the development and piloting of the programme and to assess the perceptions and impacts of the programme on mentors, mentees and the whole school. This report includes findings from interviews with MVP school development officers (youth workers from the Merseyside Youth Association [MYA], the organisation commissioned to deliver MVP), pre and post training surveys with the mentors, post programme surveys with mentees, and a school staff survey.

The Public Health Institute, Liverpool John Moores University were commissioned to undertake a Health Needs Assessment (HNA) for Cheshire Youth Justice Services (YJS). The HNA aimed to assess the health and wellbeing needs of the youth offender population across Cheshire East, Cheshire West, Halton, and Warrington.