Leeds and York unis are leading a new research centre that aims to change how services work together to help vulnerable people.
The Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre is a joint initiative led by the University of Leeds and the University of York, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Research Centre For Vulnerable People
The ground-breaking new research centre aims to change how the police, public services and local government work together to help vulnerable people.
The centre brings together a wide range of national and regional partners to study how policing and other services can better tackle problems associated with vulnerabilities.
These include exploitation by county lines drug networks, online child sexual exploitation, domestic abuse, modern slavery, mental illness and homelessness.
An important dimension of the centre’s immediate work begins in Bradford. The researchers will analyse police, health, education, and social care datasets to gather new insights into how organisations work together to address the vulnerability, as well as vulnerable people’s experiences.
Mapping services used by vulnerable people
The research team will map the services used by vulnerable people who are in contact with the police in Bradford to better understand the nature, distribution, and concentrations of vulnerabilities across the city.
The team will study how different services interact, and how they can best work together to prevent harm arising from vulnerabilities. Working collaboratively with partner organisations, the team will help inform improvements in the provision of integrated services for vulnerable individuals, groups and neighbourhoods.
Professor Adam Crawford, of Leeds’ School of Law, and York Law School, is Co-Director of the centre, said: ‘Collaboration between different organisations and sectors is absolutely crucial if we are going to address the challenges that vulnerable people face and that organisations come up against when trying to respond to these issues.
‘Understanding how different local services work together in Bradford, and subsequently Leeds, will be incredibly valuable. It will enable us to identify where the research can be used to improve services and inform how public services from different cities across the country can best work together to improve outcomes for vulnerable people.’