SafetyNet Waltham Forest’s community safety partnership

SafetyNet is a partnership between the council, police, probation, fire, and health services, as well as key partners including housing providers, victim services, plus community and voluntary sectors.

SafetyNet aims to reduce anti-social behaviour, gang crime, violence against women and girls, youth and re-offending, and substance misuse.

The work of SafetyNet is facilitated through its partnership board.

Duties of the SafetyNet board include:

• commissioning  the Waltham Forest Strategic Assessment in response to existing and emerging crime threats and challenges
• refreshing SafetyNet’s strategic objectives and priorities annually, to ensure resources are deployed effectively
• meeting quarterly to review the performance of partners delivering the SafetyNet action plan

The partnership board reports to the council’s Community Safety Scrutiny Committee.

Meetings are attended by the council’s Portfolio Lead Holder for Community Safety, partner agency stakeholders and other community representatives. Meetings aren’t open to the public.

The SafetyNet partnership was setup in 1996 as the borough’s Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership. After the enactment of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, it took on statutory status.

SafetyNet consists of four subgroups, which are all accountable to the board. The board and each subgroup are governed by their individual terms of reference. Each delivers a strategic priority action plan on behalf of the board.

These four subgroups are as follows:

1. Violence against women and girls (VAWG)

This group involves members of all four strategic partnership boards. Our aim is to prevent VAWG through education and awareness-raising, and to respond at the earliest opportunity to the diverse needs of victims/survivors through a holistic recovery model.

2. Gangs and youth violence

Our ambition is to reduce the harm caused by gangs, knife crime, youth violence and associated forms of exploitation and abuse. We want to do this by ensuring a consistent ‘whole family’ approach across agencies and involve the community at all levels to build resilience and capacity.

3. Anti-social behaviour

Our aim is to improve the quality of life for Waltham Forest residents by reducing social harm caused to individuals, the community and the environment from anti-social behaviour. 

4. Prevent

Our ambition is to prevent the radicalisation of Waltham Forest residents and stop the support of terrorism. We aim to do this by adopting a holistic needs-based preventative approach using the ‘Think Family (PDF)’ lens and an evidence-based understanding of what works.

Domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) were established on a statutory basis under section 9 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, and came into force on 13 April 2011.

Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs), like SafetyNet, are responsible for undertaking DHRs where the death of a person aged 16 or over has, or appears to have, resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by a relative, household member or someone s/he has been in an intimate relationship with.

A review panel, led by an independent chair and consisting of representatives from statutory and voluntary agencies is commissioned to undertake the DHR.

The panel reviews each agency's involvement in the case and makes recommendations to improve responses in the future. The panel will also consider information from the victim's family, friends and work colleagues. The purpose of DHRs is to consider the circumstances that led to the death and to identify where responses to the situation could be improved in the future. Lessons learned from the reviews will help agencies to improve their response to domestic abuse and to work better together to prevent such tragedies from occurring again.

DHRs are not enquiries into how someone died or who is to blame, nor do they form part of a disciplinary process. They do not replace but are in addition to, an inquest and any other form of enquiry into a homicide.

The Home Office has published statutory guidance on how to complete DHRs.

For all published statutory reviews, including safeguarding adult reviews, serious case reviews and domestic homicide reviews, please visit our Strategic Partnership Boards page.

Use these links to find out more information, or to report a crime:

• find out more about local community safety issues and services
• report a crime to the police through the Metropolitan Police Service website
• report a hate crime through the True Vision web site

For more videos and information visit our main Resources to improve practice web page.

• Safeguarding Adults Boards
• Safeguarding Children Board
• Health and Wellbeing Board
• Strategic Partnership Boards