‘Positive Futures’ is a project that was designed to develop engagement and trust between the young people and the police. This was to be achieved through empowering young people to develop and deliver strategies and interventions to prevent low level crime and disorder in the communities in which they live. The project originally aimed to test two broad hypotheses: (1) that engaging the community and young people to identify and then proactively solve problems will lead to sustained, efficient, and effective solutions and (2) that properly understanding, listening, and reacting to what young people tell the police, will positively impact upon their perceptions of the police in both the short and long term.

The project aimed to engage cohorts of young people (aged broadly between 11 and 15 years old) living in different communities in the county of Surrey where there were thought to be issues related to trust in the police and low-level crime problems. Local schools, the police service, youth clubs and other organisations would communicate with young people, enabling them to analyse problems, and to devise solutions to them.

The project was piloted in Sunbury-on-Thames, Woking and Tadworth.

Overall, while all three pilots had issues with delivering their projects to completion, they all had some successes, not least with making discernible changes to an underpass (Sunbury) and a local park (Woking) that the young people had identified as being problems that needed addressing. While less tangible progress was made in Tadworth there were still some achievements, such as the planting of additional plants and shrubs near the youth club. The involvement of the young people in all three pilots was viewed by them, and by stakeholders, as being a positive and rewarding experience, which is a significant achievement for Positive Futures too.