About

The Safer Neighbourhoods Annual Challenge (The SNAC) is an initiative designed to make your Borough a safer place by getting children and young people involved in

  • identifying problems within their local neighbourhoods;
  • suggesting solutions to those problems;
  • making those solutions work.

The SNAC asks a very simple question:

What can you do to make your neighbourhood safer?

 

SNAC Participation

The SNAC is open to children and young people, aged 5-19, who go to one of the following in the local area:

  • a Primary School;
  • a Secondary School or College;
  • a Youth Group (or other organisation for young people).

Participants don’t actually have to live in the Borough to take part.

The SNAC will run during the Spring Term and the children and young people taking part will be divided into three age groups:

  •  under 11’s
  • 11-14
  • 15-19

Participants simply need to identify the challenge that they want to take on in their local neighbourhood, get themselves into a team, fill out an entry form and get started!

 

SNAC Projects should be:

  • Imaginative;
  • Practical;
  • Affordable;
  • Sustainable;
  • Based in the Borough.

In short, they should make a real and lasting difference to their local community.

Individual SNAC challenges might last for just a few hours on a single day – or could take the whole term to complete. Some projects may even last longer than that. The important thing is to make a difference.

 

SNAC Recognition

At the end of the Spring Term, teams will be able to enter their project for the official SNAC Competition.  The teams who have done the most to make their neighbourhood safer will receive an invitation to the SNAC Celebrity Awards Ceremony – and an opportunity to win:

  • A SNAC Trophy;
  • Prizes for individual team members (winners and two runners up in each age category);
  • A substantial cash prize for the winning School or Youth Club in each age category.

Everyone who enters the SNAC competition – regardless of whether or not they win one of the main prizes – will receive an official certificate in recognition of their achievements.

 

SNAC Support

SNAC Teams will be offered plenty of support for their projects:

  • Each participant will get a SNAC Pack – containing a variety of promotional materials and examples of projects they might like to consider;
  • Each team will have their own SNAC Contact – PCs and PCSOs from the Borough’s Safer Neighbourhoods Teams & Safer Schools Team. These contacts will be responsible for supporting individual teams and helping them to get their ideas off the ground;
  • There will also be a SNAC Fund – a small amount of money available to teams who need to buy things for their projects (e.g. paint, gardening equipment).

 

Sample Projects

Suggested SNAC projects might include:

  • Neighbourhood Improvement – e.g. graffiti cleaning;
  • Crime Diversion – e.g. an after-school scheme;
  • Youth Inclusion – e.g. development/improvement of a local youth facility;
  • Crime Reduction – e.g. a property marking project;
  • Crime Awareness – e.g. a campaign to highlight the consequences/ dangers of carrying a knife.

 

In Closing

The SNAC is all about transformation: transformation of local neighbourhoods and transformation of the lives of those taking part.