MEET THE
TEAM
#stopviolence
Natalie Baker-Napier
Head of the VRP
Natalie has over 12 years experience working in policing including developing strategy, policy and governance at a local, regional and national level.
Natalie was instrumental in designing and implementing the multi agency, public health approach to violence reduction in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire alongside the former Director of the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Violence Reduction Partnership. She has lead on the day to day running of the VRP since 2019, until her appointment to Interim Head in July 2021.
Natalie lives in Nottinghamshire with her partner and black Labrador.
Rachel Miller
Young Person's Strategy and
Improvement Specialist
Rachel is Group Manager for Early Help and Youth Justice at Nottinghamshire County Council.
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Rachel has over ten years experience of working with children and families in Nottingham. She started her career in Education, as a teaching assistant at what was then Elliott Durham School in St. Ann's.
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Rachel worked on the front line as a Family Intervention Project Practitioner in the City before moving to the County Council to manage various youth and family support teams before coming into her current role.
Monica Johnson
VRP Youth Work Lead
Monica is the Violence Reduction Partnership Youth Work Project Lead.
As part of this role, she oversees the implementation of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and VRP Youth Work Strategy to achieve a positive impact against OPCC and VRP aims, to reduce youth violence and increase community safety, by increasing the quality, capacity and confidence of practitioners and organisations that work with young people in the youth diversion space.
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Monica’s previous role was with the Nottingham Youth Justice Service as their prevention team Lead in the targeted youth support team, where she managed a team of six workers, each of whom held a caseload of 10 young people. The age range she worked with was 10–17 and Monica specialised in providing assessments, tailored intervention and/or consultation for children and young people who were identified at risk of or were involved in criminal exploitation and or serious youth violence.
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Prior to moving to Nottingham, Monica worked for Kirklees Metropolitan Council for approximately 25 years in various roles from management, to on the ground grassroots youth work. Along with this, Monica set up her youth provision in Huddersfield on Saturday mornings for young people in the local area to have a safe space to try out new opportunities, be heard, be respected and have the opportunity to learn new skills. Monica achieved this while working full time for the local authority and managed bring in sponsorship from local businesses, the local authority and the local counsellor.
James Woolley
VRP IOM Lead
James is a temporary superintendent for Nottinghamshire Police and leads on a number of strategic workstreams including youth justice services and violence against women and girls (VAWG). He has more than 22-years-worth of experience working across the whole of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in a number of front line roles including response and neighbourhood Policing.
James has an extensive background of working in partnership to address and local community issues, specifically supporting young and vulnerable people and leads on Integrated Offender Management (IOM) to prevent and deter re-offending of the most prolific offenders.
Helen Johnston
Consultant in Public Health
Helen has a background in community nutrition. She has focussed on reducing inequalities throughout her career.
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Helen has been working in public health for eight years. This includes five years of specialty training in the East Midlands working across local authorities, NHS Trusts and PHE.
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Alongside providing public health input to the VRU, Helen leads on mental health and substance misuse for the public health team at Nottingham City Council.
Steve Harrison
VRP 'Another Way' Project Manager
Steve is project manager for Another Way, an initiative funded by Youth Endowment Fund to test the impact of a focused deterrence approach in a UK setting. He has worked in various roles in Nottingham including neighbourhood management and cohesion as well as in Community Protection work to tackle ASB, gangs, knife crime and modern slavery.
Prior to that he worked in community safety in South-East London. He has an MA in Public Policy. He is keen to see the voice and experiences of communities, particularly young people included in research as well as data and professional expertise.
Sarah Pearce
Business Support Officer
VRP
Sarah has previous experience in community adult education supporting adult learners and various voluntary roles.
Overcoming the difficulties of finding employment as a single parent Sarah went on to work for Nottingham City Council and study Business Administration. She now supports the VRU in a part time role.
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Sarah is passionate about working with people and enjoys working with in the VRU team to achieve system change and improve outcomes for people in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Sarah’s role in the VRU is to provide business and administration support but she is also interested in issues such as Domestic violence/Abuse, Trauma informed practice and families. With her previous work experience, qualifications, continued personal development and lived experience, Sarah encourages discussions to explore various issues and enable coproduction and community engagement to prevent violence and reduce its effects in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.
Carly McKinney
VRP Education Project Support Officer
Carly has more than 14 years of experience working with children, young people and families within Nottinghamshire including specialising in neurodevelopment and neurodevelopment assessments of children and young people.
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Carly’s role within the VRP includes: coordination and management of VRP education funded interventions, involvement and identification of system change led work linked to education, steering trauma informed practice with partners through subgroups of workforce, readiness assessment with a plan for an education subgroup and being the main point of contact for education within the VRP.
Tracey Jordan
VRP 'Another Way' Project Support Officer
Tracy has 25 years of experience in policing, working in various roles, including response, neighbourhood policing across the city of Nottingham and Custody.
She has collaborated with partners and the community and implemented a problem-solving approach to tackling knife crime, gangs and ASB. She was the lead for children and young people in custody and developed projects and procedures, providing intervention and targeted support for juveniles and the vulnerable.
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Tracy is also a swimming instructor, teaching a life skill to children ranging from three to 16-years-old and coaching complete beginners life-saving CPR and first aid.
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Tracy loves working with children and young people and enjoys partnership work and engagement. She looks forward to using her experience to support the Violence Reduction Partnership to improve communities and better outcomes for families and young people.