Prevent

Prevent strategy

Prevent is one strand of the UK’s wider counter-terrorism strategy known as CONTEST. The four strands of the CONTEST strategy are:

• Prevent – aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism by safeguarding people and communities
• Pursue – concerned with the apprehension and arrest of people suspected of being engaged in the planning, preparation or commissioning of terrorism
• Protect – seeks to strengthen our protection against a terrorist attack and reduce our vulnerability to an attack
• Prepare – mitigate the impact of a terrorist attack where an attack cannot be stopped

The purpose of the Prevent strand is to safeguard and support people to stop them from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism of any form. Prevent aims to:

• tackle the ideological causes of terrorism
• intervene early to support people susceptible to radicalisation
• enable people who have already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate

For more information about Prevent, refer to the Home Office Prevent strategy 2011

What is Prevent and what does it do?

Prevent is a service that provides non-compulsory safeguarding support to people who have the final say in accepting support or not.

It is about safeguarding. In the same way, support is provided to those at risk of becoming involved in gangs, drugs, exploitation, or other forms of harm, individuals susceptible to being groomed into terrorism can also be offered support.

Prevent operates within a non-criminal space, intending to pre-empt criminal activity. This ensures the protection of communities and not its criminalisation.

Importantly, those who receive support from Prevent do not receive a criminal record.

What does the Prevent team do?

• Training frontline staff in recognising, referring, and responding to the risks posed by violent extremist ideologies.
• Supporting local schools, community organisations, faith establishments and partner agencies. Support includes engagement, advice, and training. We aim to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to address any potential risks around radicalisation within their organisations.
• Running our Channel programme, which is designed to provide early intervention to help and support individuals who may be at risk of radicalisation.
• Ensuring that publicly owned venues and resources do not provide a platform for extremists and are not used to promote or spread extremist views.
• Supporting voluntary and community sector organisations, charities, and faith establishments with practical support. This is to help identify and address risks or gaps they may have in their management, procedures and policies around safeguarding and radicalisation, which could potentially leave them at risk.
• Strengthening resilience in communities across the city against violent extremism and radicalisation.  
• Commission projects for delivery in a variety of community settings. To promote cohesion, increase resilience, and improve understanding of violent extremism and radicalisation. These projects will promote and support the core values of the borough. Encouraging common and shared values in a modern and increasingly technological world.

What is radicalisation and what may it look like?

The Prevent strategy defines radicalisation as the process by which someone comes to support terrorism or forms of extremism which lead to terrorism.

Because radicalisation is a process, it is hoped that people like you can intervene in the process to prevent people from harming themselves or others.

There is no single factor that leads someone to become radicalised. Instead, it is often the result of several factors. Some indicators of concern may be:

• Justifying the use of violence to bring about political, social or cultural change. This may mean supporting terrorist acts to bring about change.
• Possessing extreme material or symbols. This could include possessing certain literature, items or clothing.
• Engaging with extreme groups and their messaging. Sometimes the person may try to convince others of that message. They may also believe that violence is the only means to enable this extreme belief to be implemented.
• Use of extreme or hate terms to exclude others or incite violence
• Spending an increasing amount of time online. The person may be sharing or consuming extreme views online.

If you are worried that someone you know is being radicalised, you can: 

• contact Act early for advice
• contact your local Prevent team for advice Prevent@derby.gov.uk
• call the anti-terrorism hotline on 0800 789 321
• put in a Prevent referral – visit How do I make a referral 

If you are in immediate danger, please call 999 for assistance. 

What is Channel and how does it support Prevent?

If the Prevent referral progresses and it is assessed that there is a genuine risk of radicalisation, the case is considered by a multi-agency ‘Channel panel’ of professionals who collectively assess the case and decide on a tailored package of support that can be offered to the person. 

The Channel panel is chaired by the local authority and can include a variety of partners such as the police, children’s services, social services, education professionals and mental health care professionals. 

Channel is a confidential and voluntary process where multi-agency safeguarding professionals meet to discuss support options. These support options encompass an array of different interventions, addressing educational, vocational, mental health, and other vulnerabilities. Ideological support is also common, which may include discussion with credible ideological experts and faith leaders.

For more information about Channel, view the Government's Channel and Prevent Multi-Agency Panel (PMAP) guidance.

How to make a prevent referral

If you are concerned that an individual is being radicalised, is supporting extremism or terrorism, you can make a Prevent referral. This could be for a family member, friend, colleague, or a professional. 

Refer someone to the Prevent team

Prevent referrals are not made to the Home Office; they are handled by expert Prevent officers from Derbyshire Constabulary.  

When someone makes a referral, multiple agencies work together to offer support. This involves steps including:

• the police, who will carefully assess all referrals to see what type of support is needed
• the referral being discussed with all relevant partners at a meeting called a Channel panel, to decide if an intervention is needed - the person who has been referred, will be asked to give their consent (or through a parent or guardian if they are under the age of 18) before an intervention can take place
• if Channel intervention is needed, the panel will work with local partners to develop a support package
• a support package, which will be monitored and reviewed regularly by the Channel panel

Referring someone to Prevent will not get them into trouble if they have not committed a crime.

Prevent does not try to punish people and they will not receive a criminal record by engaging in the programme.

Prevent connects people to the support they need to protect themselves and others from the dangers of radicalisation.

Prevent in schools

A large proportion of Prevent referrals both locally and nationally come from schools.

Everyone working in a school has a duty to safeguard children from harm and the Prevent duty is part of that – specifically to safeguard people from the harms of radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism.

Most of the young people that are referred to us are in the early stages of being radicalised. Some will have been watching and possibly sharing violent extremist material online; some might have been in touch with others via internet chatrooms; some may have attended an extremist event in the real world. Many will have conducted further research into their chosen ideology online.

We are able to intervene at an early stage and put in place support plans to help a young person divert from the negative path that they have found themselves on and steer them toward a brighter and more positive future. We do this in partnership with schools and often other agencies, such as social care or charitable organisations.

Every individual is different and the vulnerabilities and circumstances that have led to their referral will be different in each case. For this reason, the support too will be individualised. There is no profile or single pathway to radicalisation – young people from all backgrounds are referred to us.

Local issues

The types of concerns we see most frequently from young people in Derby city and surrounding areas are:

• far-right extremism (for example, neo-Nazi groups, white supremacists, those purporting Islamophobic or anti-Semitic or holocaust-denial narratives)
• school massacre fixation (young people who seriously threaten to hurt or kill classmates, often influenced by mass killings in the US such as Columbine or the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas)
• so-called Islamist extremism (often inspired by ISIS or Al-Qaeda).

Building Resilience

One of the most important ways in which schools can help is by building resilience against potential radicalisation. So that when young people come across extremist messaging, memes and social media posts, they already possess the critical thinking skills to question what they are seeing and hearing.

There are many ways that such resilience can be built into the curriculum, for example, learning about the Equality Act 2010 in PSHE or about the contribution of Black and Asian soldiers during WW2 in history, or simply by understanding different faiths in religious studies classes. There are also opportunities to embed shared values such as democracy in less obvious ways (voting for a sports captain for instance and explaining why this is the fairest system). Many of our schools are already doing excellent work in this area.

There are also opportunities to look at issues such as fake news, online safety, anti-racism, equality, and extremism, in off-timetable ‘drop-down’ days or during tutor time.

For educational sourcing and ideas visit the list of resources. 

Special educational needs (SEN)

There is some evidence to suggest that young people with special educational needs (SEN) might be over-represented in the Prevent or even specifically targeted for radicalisation by extremists. Therefore it is important to give all young people the tools they need to be able to recognise and reject extremist views, (particularly online).

For more information for SEN visit the list of resources.

Trusted resources

• Act Early: Act - Prevent Radicalisation and Extremism by Acting Early
• Education resources: Educate against hate
• Prevent Duty: GOV.UK - Prevent duty guidance
• Standards and Compliance Unit: GOV.UK - Make a complaint about Prevent
• Proscribed organisations in the UK: GOV.UK - Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations 

Training

• Free online training -  Prevent duty training: Learn how to support people susceptible to radicalisation, on the Government website.
• Free online training - ACT Awareness e-Learning, on the ACT website.

Contact details

• Email our team at prevent@derby.gov.uk
• Call the anti-terrorism hotline on 0800 789 321
• Report suspicious activity to M15 on the Government website
• Report online material promoting terrorism or extremism on the Government website