This section outlines the key features of a neighbourhood assessment, describing what it is, and isn't.
It can be tempting to increase the assessment area to incorporate surrounding contexts. While the interplay with nearby contexts is important to consider, if the location area is too big it can be unwieldy and difficult to manage. Remember a neighbourhood can be as small as assessing safety in a bus stop, a park bench, or a specific shop. While it may be tempting to make your area big, the larger it is the more difficult it can be to assess and intervene with. If a large location is causing concern for young people, consider breaking it down into manageable elements and assessing them separately. You can then bring them together at a later stage to look at collectively.
Safeguarding children is about increasing their safety, not preventing crime. Keep your focus on the needs of young people rather punishment. Moving young people out of an area does not always reduce their risk and could just move them on to new areas where they are vulnerable – nor does it address the safety concerns in the original community context for the future. A neighbourhood assessment helps you to consider young people’s needs in this location and build safety with and around them. The aim is to make the location safer not just for the young people you are worried about, but for all young people who come across this location.
Involve partners who are influential within the neighbourhood area that you are trying to change. This may mean involving both traditional (education and social care who hold a safeguarding duty) and less traditional partners, like the people who live, spend time in or work in the neighbourhood you’re assessing and may be able to provide support to young people (businesses, faith leaders, dog walkers etc).
To know who to include start by asking: who has influence in the neighbourhood and who can make it safer? Young people are key partners and their views and experiences will be central to the assessment because it will be shaped by where they feel safe and unsafe, how they experience harm in this location, and what change they would like to see in their community. Below, click on the 'Partners: who to include' infographic in Related Resources to see examples of how traditional and non-traditional partners can be engaged in neighbourhood assessments.
