A counter terrorism initiative ACT NOW that seeks to stimulate debate around the sensitive subjects of terrorism and extremism in society will be rolled out to police forces across the country.
The event was opened by ACPO Prevent Lead Chief Supt Mark Collins and hosted in partnership with the National ACPO Prevent team – overseeing the project from a national perspective.
ACT NOW is an interactive community counter terrorism exercise. The workshops are hosted across Lancashire and enable community groups from any background to be Counter Terrorism Officers for the day in a bid to strike up dialogue and debate. The engagement style allows communities and particularly young people to discuss any perceptions they might have in a safe environment.
ACT NOW has been developed by Lancashire Constabulary’s Counter Terrorism Branch with partner agencies such as the Crown Prosecution Service, Community Cohesion Team, and the Police Hate Crime and Diversity Units in East Lancashire.
The scheme was first launched at Ewood Park, Blackburn in November 2007 and was piloted across the North West in March last year with police in Lancashire amongst the first in the country to trial the new technique.
Over the last 18 months, over 160 ACT NOW sessions have been delivered both regionally and nationally. Since the project started schools, colleges and universities across the country and over 2,000 participants have undergone the ACT NOW experience.
Detective Sergeant Ken Kirwan from Lancashire Constabulary Counter Terrorism Branch said: "We are delighted to work in partnership with so many forces across the UK including Scotland and Wales. Having the ACPO Prevent team on-board provides the essential national support to ensure the delivery of ACT NOW in each part of the country.
"Under the Home Office PREVENT agenda it is clear that understanding and engaging with our communities lies at the heart of preventing terrorism. Since July 2005, Lancashire Constabulary with other key partners has sought to identify a number of ways to develop the counter terrorism debate within community groups across the county.
"Since ACT NOW has been up and running there has been a great deal of interest from other constabularies, schools, colleges and universities. The collective response from the pilot phase has been universally positive and Lancashire Constabulary now has a number of community facilitators to ensure the breadth of ACT NOW opportunities essential to the longer term success of the project."
One of the basic principles of policing is that officers work with and should understand the communities they are policing and these workshops provide a forum for anyone to ensure that they can have a voice in helping the police to carry out their role more effectively.
In September, the ACT NOW for schools programme will be piloted at a number of secondary schools across the North West; this will comprise of a teacher resource pack, including lesson plans and promotional material.
