NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED TRAINING TAXI DRIVERS AND BUILDING LINKS Sgt Rachel Wood: North Yorkshire Police Sandra Rees: Scarborough Borough Council

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED The postcard perception

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Some of our key issues Violence/sexual assaults /neglect in relation to vulnerable adults and children Drug Dealing Domestic Incidents Issues in the Night Time Economy Child Sexual Exploitation

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Taxi Drivers Often forgotten as a key partner The eyes and ears of our community Invaluable information and intelligence Lack of confidence/mistrust in Police/Authority “Mind their own business” mindset

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Initial approach to the problem Voluntary free safeguarding training offered Not well attended Those who attended were already on board with the positive messages and the “harder to reach” element didn’t come

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED A simple but effective solution At local annual taxi policy renewal, policy changed to make it mandatory for every driver to attend our safeguarding awareness session before they could be granted a licence to drive taxis. Result – All 350 drivers in the Scarborough district trained and new drivers trained anually

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED What was covered Basic Child Protection Basic Adult Safeguarding Child Sexual Exploitation Domestic Abuse Hate and Mate Crime How to report concerns and /or any crime

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Challenges in the training Training adults who don’t want to be there was difficult at times At the start of the sessions some attendees were negative and challenging around the Police and Council enforcement roles Finding time in our calendars to accommodate all of the sessions needed to train all of the drivers. Negative local media coverage

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Successes of the training At the start of each session, many drivers demonstrated negative body language and comments – however as the session developed the majority were “won round” to a new mind set Good opportunity for delivering a number of positive messages Not one session was delivered where a number of drivers did not stay behind at the end to report concerns/give intelligence to the trainers

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Further Successes Better future working relationships were built between agencies and police, and taxi drivers More intelligence and a greater number of reports were made to police following the training (no official method of giving statistics for this, based on anecdotal evidence from police office and perceptions from both drivers and police colleagues)

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED yet more …. Closer partnership working with the drivers were established, e.g. nominated PCSO allocated to each firm Idea for Taxi Watch (akin to Pub Watch) Stickers and cards for vehicles and offices All firms are linked to the Pub Watch system

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED A Case Study Taxi Driver collects distressed female at railway station when a male jumps in the rear of the taxi, stating his intention they are going to her home. As a direct result of training, driver is prompted to ask female if everything okay and if she needs help. She indicated she had been sexually assaulted by him in a stranger attack on the train. Driver calls police and male is arrested. Driver states prior to safeguarding training, he would have ignored his concerns and taken them both to the address taking no action at all.

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Key training elements The “right” people delivering the training, i.e. credibility, passionate about the messages and not licensing officers! Trainers being able to “manage” difficult delegates and challenges around the training early in sessions Relating the training to the “family test” and covering that “oh oh” feeling Overcoming the blockages to reporting, e.g. fear of reprisals, disillusionment with system, manage expectations about what can be done etc.

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Questions

NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED Further contact Sgt 635 Rachel Wood Direct line Sandra Rees Direct Line