£1m secured to prevent male violence against women and girls - The Solihull Observer

£1m secured to prevent male violence against women and girls

Solihull Editorial 2nd Aug, 2022   0

MORE THAN £1million in funding has been secured to prevent male violence against women and girls in the West Midlands.

The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster has been granted £458,545 to support the next steps for education programmes and public-facing campaigns across the region as part of the Home Office’s Safer Streets Fund.

He has also granted Wolverhampton Council £365,667 and Sandwell Council £227,100 for work on the project, taking the total value of the funding to the West Midlands to £1,051,312.

A core focus of the region’s bid was on education following the positive response to the pilot scheme of #timetotalk – a programme that was delivered in 12 schools across the region by Safer Together.




The programme focuses on boys in schools, helping them to understand violence against women and girls and learn how to be an ally in preventing it, and calling it out when they see it.

The additional funding means the programme can be rolled out to 60 schools in the region alongside the development of new materials and resources.


There will also be a continuation of the regional campaigns spearheaded by the West Midlands’ Victims’ Commissioner, Nicky Brennan.

The campaigns will draw on the findings of May’s YouGov survey that shed light on how people feel about calling out abuse and perceived barriers to challenging violence against women and girls.

Mr Foster, said: “We’ve been able to take some great strides already but there’s so much work to be done in achieving community-wide change and having more open conversations about what we can all do.

“This important funding will help us to do just that.

“We wanted to put men and boys at the forefront of essential conversations about violence against women and girls.

“The feedback from the #timetotalk pilot was overwhelmingly positive and we’re pleased to have the chance to take it to the next level.

“Education can be the ‘silver bullet’. It allows us to confront the root causes of violence and break these dangerous cycles of behaviour.”

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