Neighbourhood Watch nationally

On a national level, we (our Central Support Team (CST)) provide support to Associations, groups and members to grow, diversify and develop the Neighbourhood Watch movement. This includes the provision of guidance and crime prevention toolkits, national liaison with key partners to support the growth of the movement and sharing effective practice by local areas.

• Strategy: Our Board of Trustees work alongside us to set our strategic direction.  We develop and deliver the strategic delivery plan and run regular national events to update members on progress against the action and involve them in new developments.
• Research: We commission academic research and analysis to help identify and target the practical activities that will help to grow, develop and diversify our movement and develop tools that will assist us to understand, articulate and measure our impact.
• Resources: We develop toolkits and resources for members to use for local campaigns, fundraising, crime prevention activity and projects. We focus on issues that align to our strategic plan and reflect areas of concern nationally to our members, the police and other partners including Government. We develop how effective practice by groups and individuals can be identified, captured and shared across our movement.
• Membership: We work with Associations to understand their support needs and to determine how this can best be provided for. We developed a self-assessment tool for Associations to make their own assessment of their support needs. Our resources at head office are limited, so local improvement support is carefully prioritised to ensure it is effective and delivered where it is of most benefit. Where there is no Association in place, or an Association needs significant support we run and/or fund re-invigoration and acceleration programmes that help with improvements by the Association or identify new Neighbourhood Watch models that may work in particular areas.
• Projects: We develop national partnerships to: identify upcoming issues and shared agendas, and scope ideas and joint projects to broaden the reach, diversity and impact of our movement. Working with Associations and local partners we pilot new ideas and projects to understand our role in raising public awareness of how to prevent a broad range of criminal activity and support vulnerable people. We provide tools to assist Associations to develop and understand the impact of their local activity, offer advice about starting new projects and establishing local partnerships that support our strategic plan.
• Funding: We research national funding opportunities that align to our priorities and prepare funding bids to support both core funding and specific project work against these priorities.  We provide advice to Associations to assist them to identify local relevant funding channels and runs workshops and gives general advice to members about how to prepare their bids.  We also publish fundraising guidance and templates to assist local Neighbourhood Watch areas with their own funding bids.
• Communication: We act as the voice of our movement, leveraging our brand and capitalising on our national role and extended public reach to raise our profile and influence partners and other stakeholders. We identify and develop press opportunities where we have relevance and it adds value to national debate and campaign activity. We keep our supporters up to date with relevant national developments in crime trends and prevention advice and share local successes through our newsletter and regular news articles on our website. We regularly share partners’ campaign material that is relevant and useful to our membership and develop our own campaigns.
• Technology: We provide the national IT infrastructure for our membership and lead improvements to our website. We assist Associations to use our membership database by ensuring Multi Scheme Administrators (MSAs) have access to training and advice appropriate to their role, often provided locally, and resolving technical problems in liaison with the system provider.
• Administrative: We manage telephone enquiries and emails received from our members and the public. Local issues are then referred to Association Leads for them to deal with. We analyse all enquiries to identify the most frequently asked questions and publish guidance and advice on these issues or troubleshoot regularly recurring problems.