This document provides an overview of a training on community engagement for West Yorkshire Police. The aims of the training are to raise awareness of the key role community engagement plays in policing, describe intensive engagement principles and how they are applied, discuss opportunities and challenges, and explore practical next steps. Learning outcomes include describing the definition of engagement, understanding its importance, how it can reduce demand, and applying principles operationally. The training covers why community engagement is useful for tackling criminality and disorder, scenarios to explore effective engagement challenges, and preparing for post-training tasks. It emphasizes the importance of community engagement in the future vision of policing.

1. Community Engagement in
West Yorkshire Police
Richard James & Tim Curtis

2. Aims
The purpose of this training is to:
• raise awareness of the key role that community
engagement plays in effective neighbourhood
policing.
• describe intensive engagement principles and how
they are applied
• discuss the opportunities and challenges involved in
delivering effective engagement with communities
• explore practical ‘next steps’ for practitioners

3. Learning Outcomes
• By the end of the training you will be able to:
– Describe the College of Policing definition of engagement.
– Understand the importance of engagement as a
fundamental component of WYP neighbourhood policing
model
– Describe how effective engagement can reduce demand
on police
– Consider how principles and theory may be applied
operationally

5. ACC Introduction

6. PLEASE COMPLETE THE SURVEY

7. Broad Outline of the training
This training course is made up of 3 sections, to help
you tackle this homework
1. How ‘community engagement’ is useful for tackling
criminality, as well as ‘being nice to do’ [1hr] [break]
2. A scenario workshop to explore the challenge of
making ‘community engagement’ effective [1hr]
3. Preparing you for the post-training task; in doing
first steps of more effective community
engagement [30mins]

8. SECTION 1 WHY COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
Tackling criminality
Doing so effectively, efficiently and legitimately

9. Why did you join West Yorkshire Police?
• 5 mins to discuss this with your neighbour
• 10 mins feedback

10. Purpose of NP
• In groups - what you believe the function and
purpose of Neighbourhood Policing is?
• What do you see as the benefits of Neighbourhood
Policing?
• Time: 10 mins

11. The best definition of community engagement
• The process of enabling the participation of citizens
and communities in policing at their chosen level,
ranging from providing information and reassurance,
to empowering them to identify and implement
solutions to local problems and influence strategic
priorities and decisions.
• College of Policing 2006 and 2012

12. New definition of Neighbourhood Policing

14. Peelian Principles
• PRINCIPLE 1 “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.”
• PRINCIPLE 2 “The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public
approval of police actions.”
• PRINCIPLE 3 “Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary
observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.”
• PRINCIPLE 4 “The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes
proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.”
• PRINCIPLE 5 “Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to the public opinion but
by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.”
• PRINCIPLE 6 “Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the
law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to
be insufficient.”
• PRINCIPLE 7 “Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives
reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the
police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties
which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
• PRINCIPLE 8 “Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and
never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.”
• PRINCIPLE 9 “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible
evidence of police action in dealing with it.”

16. Easy to remember?
• Prevent: proactive not react
• Public approval: not assuming assent
• Willing co-operation: not just passive acceptance
• Impartial service: evidence led activity
• police are the public and the public are the police
• interests of community welfare
• test of police efficiency is the absence of crime &
disorder: not busyness

17. NPCC Vision 2025- Local (Neighbourhood) Policing
Desired outcome by 2025: Local Policing will be aligned, and where appropriate integrated, with
other local public services to improve outcomes for citizens:
• Prevention:
• Ensuring policing is increasingly focused on preventative activity as opposed to reacting to
crime once it has occurred.
• Early Intervention:
• Working with partners to help resolve the issues of individuals who cause recurring
problems and crime reducing the demand placed on the public sector and policing
specifically.

18. NPCC Vision 2025- Local (Neighbourhood) Policing
• Location, Victim and Offender Focus:
• Using an improved understanding of vulnerability as a means of
improving and differentiating service and protection in physical and
virtual locations.
• This may mean moving away from neighbourhood policing as a
universal service to an approach informed by the evidence of what
works targeting vulnerability and areas of high need and demand.

19. NPCC Vision 2025- Local (Neighbourhood) Policing
• Public Service Integration:
• Supporting the development of a place-based approach with more
multi-agency teams or hubs to tackle community issues that require
action by a range of agencies and organisations.
• Moving beyond isolated, service based practice and look across a
“whole place” using pooled budgets to commission preventative
services.
• Improving data sharing and transfer of learning between agencies and
forces to work more effectively together to embed evidence based
practice

21. Burglary
Cybercrime
CSA
Community cohesion
Domestic abuse
Hate crime
Drugs and alcohol abuse
‘Honour’ based crime
Human trafficking & modern slavery
Mental (ill) health
Major threats
Missing people
Radicalisation
Sexual abuse
Road safety
Terrorism & serious public disorder
How would you prioritise these?

22. The 3 pillars
Problem
Solving
Early
Intervention
Community
Engagement

23. Engagement Strategy
4 key elements of the strategy:
• Listen
• Respond
• Involve
• Inform

24. Summing up
• NHP is the Foundation of the UK Policing Model
• Effective Community Engagement lies at the heart of
future vision of policing
– Mark Burns-Williamson, West Yorkshire’s Police and Crime
Commissioner, said: “The new Neighbourhood Policing
Model will focus on:
• engagement with communities,
• problem solving and prevention and
• early intervention
– in helping to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
• responding positively to feedback from HMIC is
essential
• Every person, every task contributes to that plan

25. BREAK
15mins

26. SECTION 2: MAKING COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT EFFECTIVE
Day to day activity contributes to strategy
Being consistent, coherent and legitimate in engagement

27. How good do you feel you are at delivering
effective Community Engagement ?

28. Here are the 2018 criteria:

29. Workshop Scenario
• In your neighbourhood, you are beginning to hear reports of
the exploitation of some people with learning disabilities
• You are also hearing reports of a number of altercations in the
streets, including homophobic attacks. Burglary rates are
starting to increase. There has been a sharp increase in shops
closing and houses for sale.
• In your teams: map out the key steps of your engagement
plan to respond.
– What are you going to do
– Who are you going to do it with?
• 10 mins to report back

30. Lets see how it compares…..
• Process – repeatable, diarised, scheduled, public
aware
• Enabling Participation- purposeful, behaviour
different after the meeting, taking action
• Citizens and communities – individuals , group
marginalised, perpetrators, third sector, agencies
• Chosen level -numbers, demographically
representative, advertised,
• Policing – proactive, preventative

31. The 8 step process
Intensive Engagement- Locally Identified Solutions and Practices (LISP)- 8 step toolkit
Step 1 Clarify the justification for commencing Intensive Engagement -scan what is known about the
neighbourhood. What does crime and other data tell us? What are the issues identified? What is the
evidence for this? Is there an evidence base for adopting as a location?
Step 2 What community assets already exist in the location? What networks and associations are there? What are
the vulnerabilities are in the area? (what makes this area already mostly successful?)
Step 3 Who shares the problem? Stakeholders & networks Identify who are directly involved in this issue?
(individuals, agencies, businesses, residents etc). How are all people/ agencies involved associated?
Step 4 Develop Problem Rich Pictures – Engage with community members to establish how all stakeholders see the
problem? Where do the issues arise? What parts of the neighbourhood are successful? Map the results
Step 5 Form a working group made up of stakeholders who are engaged and able to make changes
Step 6 Develop Solution Rich Pictures –Engage the working group to identify what the solutions look like from the
stakeholders perspective? How can they be achieved? What would the neighbourhood look like if all the
issues were solved?
Step 7 Agree Interventions & Evaluation (Who is doing what, when, how, by when, what does success look like?)
Step 8 Establish escalation processes with stakeholders, authorities and agencies- what will make the interventions
fails? What are you going to do about it to prevent that happening? Who will you need to approach to
unblock barriers to progress?

32. Definition of Intensive Engagement
• What it is:
• “A structured and consistently repeatable process of community
engagement and involvement activities aimed at improving co-production
of community safety and resilience, shaping policing strategies and
resources to prevent and resolve problems in order to improve legitimacy,
sustain visibility and ensuring procedural justice.”
• Intensive engagement builds on existing problem solving experience and
models like SARA, and ‘have your say’, ‘world cafes’ etc but intensifies and
enhances those basic steps to build procedural fairness, legitimacy and
confidence in policing and community resilience.
• What it does:
• Captures Peel, NPCC 2025, College of Policing Guidelines, WYP Police &
Crime Plan, WYP Neighbourhood Policing Strategy &HMIC inspection
criteria in one place

33. Step 1 Clarify the justification for commencing Intensive Engagement -scan what is known about the
neighbourhood. What does crime and other data tell us? What are the issues identified? What is the
evidence for this? Is there an evidence base for adopting as a location?
Step 2 What community assets already exist in the location? What networks and associations are there? What are
the vulnerabilities are in the area? (what makes this area already mostly successful?)
Step 3 Who shares the problem? Stakeholders & networks Identify who are directly involved in this issue?
(individuals, agencies, businesses, residents etc). How are all people/ agencies involved associated?

34. Let run the scenario again
• With the existing knowledge you have about your
neighbourhood
• With the same problem;
• Work through the first 3 steps on the previous slide
• Create a new plan

35. Let’s check again.
• Process – repeatable, diarised, scheduled, public
aware
• Enabling Participation- purposeful, behaviour
different after the meeting, taking action
• Citizens and communities – individuals , group
marginalised, perpetrators, third sector, agencies
• Chosen level -numbers, demographically
representative, advertised,
• Policing – proactive, preventative

36. Break

37. SECTION 3: PREPARING FOR
IMPLEMENTATION
Pulling together strategy and daily activity

39. • Now, no longer the scenario used before, but working
with the ‘issue’ that you brought to the training

40. Back to the Intensive Engagement steps
Step 1 Clarify the justification for commencing Intensive Engagement -scan what is known about the
neighbourhood. What does crime and other data tell us? What are the issues identified? What is the
evidence for this? Is there an evidence base for adopting as a location?
Step 2 What community assets already exist in the location? What networks and associations are there? What are
the vulnerabilities are in the area? (what makes this area already mostly successful?)
Step 3 Who shares the problem? Stakeholders & networks Identify who are directly involved in this issue?
(individuals, agencies, businesses, residents etc). How are all people/ agencies involved associated?

41. Completing Step 1

42. END
Thank you
Questions?
Challenges?
Next steps?

43. Attributions
• Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com