Organised by the Faculty of Education, and Faculty of Health and Social Care as part of their professional development event programme, the conference on 'Managing Anti-Social Behaviour' took place on Wednesday 16 July 2008 at our Chelmsford Campus. The audience included professionals working in the area of Every Child Matters, including teachers, youth workers, police officers, anti-social behaviour co-ordinators, social workers and health workers.

Stephen Moore, Reader in Social Policy at Anglia Ruskin, opened the conference, welcoming the guest speakers from a range of backgrounds. Nick Burkitt, Youth Taskforce of the Department for Children, Schools and Families began the presentations with a vision and action plan for young people. He described how this would build on the success in tackling anti-social behaviour by spending £218.5m in three distinct areas. These included: tough enforcement where behaviour is unacceptable or illegal; non-negotiable support to address the underlying causes of poor behaviour; better prevention to tackle problems before they become serious and entrenched, and to prevent problems arising in the first place.

Andrew Millie, lecturer at Loughborough University and renowned author on the subject, gave an interesting review of anti-social behaviour policies and education, comparing and describing anti-social behaviour with bullying.

Tackling the topical issue of 'Youth Gangs and Weapons in Schools', in her presentation Dr. Carol Haydon, University of Portsmouth, outlined a survey conducted in one local authority area during and around Anti-Bullying week (Nov 19-23, 2007) with year 10 pupils in mainstream state secondary schools. The conclusions drawn showed that schools are still perceived as safer environments than outside school. In the current climate, worry and fear are to some extent inevitable, but the response by agencies to such surveys should be measured and aim to reduce worry amongst young people as self-defence is the main reason given for carrying weapons in the first place.

During the conference, delegates had the opportunity to attend two subject specialist workshops of their choice. These workshops included: Gail Sykes: discussing law and anti-social behaviour from a solicitor's perspective; Dr Belinda Hopkins from Transforming Conflict discussing restorative approaches; Dr Andy Briers, assisted by Prof. Ellyn Dickmann from Colorado University, USA who discussed, among other things, the comparison between how police working in schools were more acceptable in America and how improvements could be made in the UK with more training; and Ann Marsh who ran a workshop on the support given by local authorities to schools.

Chief Superintendent David Harvey of the Youth Justice Board (pictured left) commenced the afternoon session with a presentation about present and future policies, giving interesting statistics on cause and effect. An example he showed was the London wards where youth ASB was identified as top priority.

Dr Denise Martin addressed the topic of 'Violence against Teachers', and Dr John Visser concluded the conference, presenting the argument that mainstream schools can meet the needs of the majority of pupils whose behaviour can be challenging, but not all, and went on to substantiate his theories.