Medics against Violence was recently invited to attend a roundtable event at Dumfries House in Ayrshire focussing on youth violence and opportunities for young people. The event, a follow up to a similar event held recently in London and organised by the Kings Foundation, was attended by representatives of several organisations that work with young people including ourselves, the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, Includem and the Princes Trust. The group was joined by HM King Charles and Deputy PM Angela Rayner for part of their discussion. 

Alongside the roundtable the group were taken on a tour of the very impressive facilities for young people in the grounds of Dumfries House and heard about the community development programmes available to the local community.

Professor Christine Goodall attending on behalf of MAV was able to tell the group about our school programmes, including our new ‘On the Edge’ programme and our work with young people through the Navigator and Youth Navigator programmes. She also mentioned Mammagator a new pilot programme which will support new mothers experiencing domestic abuse in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. Her emphasis was on driving prevention further upstream to anticipate and prevent problems before they happened. 

We hope to continue these discussions with the Kings Foundation in the near future.