Seventy people gather online to Breaking County Lines
County Lines sees gangs and organised crime networks groom and exploit children to sell drugs, often forcing them to transport drugs and money across the country.
Contributors to the webinar included the Chief Superintendent and County Lines Co-ordination Manager of Surrey Police, an outreach worker from Crimestoppers and Bill Crooks and Jackie Mouradian from The Clewer Initiative who gave a taster of the latest Clewer Initiative resource, ‘Breaking County Lines’.
This interactive toolkit is suitable for church groups and anyone working with children and young people. It includes creative and accessible modules on understanding and detecting county lines, protecting children and vulnerable adults as well as building relationships and resilience in our communities to provide a climate where County lines cannot thrive.
During the webinar, details of the online course were shared along with a taste of the materials, including a digital story based on personal experience, interactive activities, brainstorms and discussions and biblical reflections.
The material was enthusiastically received by the 70 participants and its approach and content were affirmed and appreciated. The forum was closed by the Venerable Moira Astin, Archdeacon of Reigate who reinforced the importance of the role of the church, in supporting a life stage approach to protecting children and young people and building the resilience of our communities through relationship building and awareness raising.
The Clewer Initiative is running two online ‘Breaking County Lines’ courses this year, each including an orientation session followed by two workshops a week apart. In between these workshops participants will be invited to contribute to an online forum (Moodle) so they can reflect and comment on the material in their own time.
These courses are now fully booked but keep a look out for more dates in 2021.