National Crimebeat Award For Surrey-wide Initiative

Published on: 22 Dec, 2014
Updated on: 22 Dec, 2014

The memory box initiative that enables young offenders and those at risk of offending, to help bereaved parents, has won Surrey Youth Support Service a coveted 2014 National Crimebeat Award.

Pictured from left: Jordan Clark, assistant youth support officer Ian McDougall, High Sheriff Peter Lee, and Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Kevin Hurley.

The Certificate of Commendation was presented to Ian McDougall, assistant youth support officer, who supervises the carpentry workshop where the boxes are made, by the High Sheriff of Surrey 2014-15, Peter Lee.

“This is very exciting,“ said the High Sheriff. “It is important that Surrey’s work in tackling youth crime and helping vulnerable young people is recognised and so winning this National Crimebeat commendation certificate is fantastic.”

The memory box programme, initiated by Community Placement Manager for Surrey Youth Support Service, Ellie Paterson, has a huge impact on both the young people and the bereaved parents.

The wooden boxes are individually created and decorated and are distributed to the neonatal intensive care unit at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey. They are given to parents whose babies have died, so that they can gather up treasured memories of the lost child and keep them safe.

Jordan Clark, 18, who made a memory box when he was on a Youth Restorative Intervention programme, was at the presentation ceremony. “At first I didn’t like doing the boxes, especially at 8.30am on a Sunday,” he said. “But when I was told what the boxes were for, I thought it was a nice thing to do, making a difference to people’s lives and that’s when I joined in.

“I delivered it to the hospital and that changed my perspective on life. We saw lots of families and it made me remember my little sister who died when she was two months old. We all felt like crying that day.”

Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Kevin Hurley congratulated the Surrey Youth Support Service on the initiative. Other projects include Remember and Respect – benches for the public, and wooden games to help stroke victims at St Peter’s Hospital improve their dexterity.

The carpentry projects are carried out at two workshops, in Epsom and Woking. Ian McDougall said the young people who attended were either referred by the magistrates’ courts or came via Youth Restorative Intervention, a programme that is designed to keep young people out of the criminal system while involving them in reparation for their offending.

“When we take the young people to the hospital and they see how small these sick babies are, they think maybe their own lives are not so bad,” he explained. “They see the positive outcome of their efforts here and although at the beginning they think they cannot make the boxes, by the end they can see what they have achieved.”