A North Staffordshire outreach programme has been given £1,500 from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s People Power Fund to help those in need.
Street Chaplains was awarded the funding so that a team of volunteers help make night-times safer in North Staffordshire to provide advice, reassurance and intervention for those in need.
Street Chaplains is made up of local church leaders and volunteers who receive extensive training in first aid, handling conflict and working in a team so that they can provide assistance to people such as water and flip flops for women with no shoes.
As part of his commitment to local communities, the Commissioner is providing £500,000 in 2015/16 through the People Power Fund in the form of grants of between £100 and £3,000. The fund is supporting locally-driven community safety activities in local areas throughout Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr Ellis said: “Street Chaplains is a great service that helps to offer extra support to Staffordshire Police at night. It is beyond amazing that all of the volunteers go out until early hours in the morning to offer help and support for people in need.”
Rev Steve Russell, operations co-ordinator, said: “The grant we received from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s fund will serve to ensure that we continue with our work in providing help, support and intervention for those in need within the community by helping to tackle the causes of crime and the fear of crime. It will ensure that we sustain our Street Chaplains project and continue to serve the community.”
The People Power Fund is one part of £2.5 million of Commissioner’s Community Funding for 2014/15. The Commissioner’s Locality Deal Fund has allocated money to local areas through working in partnership with local district and borough councils. Meanwhile, the Commissioner’s Proceeds of Crime Fund is seeing 100 per cent of funding received by Staffordshire Police going back into local communities, through grants of between £3,000 and £15,000. It is made up of money seized from criminals as Staffordshire Police continue to strip offenders of their assets.
Successful projects in all three funding streams will deliver what’s important to local people based on the four priorities set out in the Commissioner’s Safer, Fairer, United Communities Strategy – tackling the root causes of crime through early intervention, supporting victims and witnesses better, reducing reoffending and increasing public confidence.
