Police Constable Steven Beer worked with his colleagues at Bedfordshire Police and the Commercial Training team at the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (TrainEEAST), to deliver first aid training to Luton Town’s Community Trust’s cohesion team last week in a bid to tackle knife crime.

PC Beer, who joined Bedfordshire Police last year via the Police Now National Graduate Leadership Programme, hosted the day-long event last week at Dunstable police station. The day consisted of basic emergency first response training including how to administer CPR and how to set and treat stab wounds.

The event was delivered to staff who all work on the Community Trust’s Luton Street League  project – which operates weekly sports sessions for young people across the most deprived wards in Luton, aimed at improving community cohesion through sports leagues, employment training and skills workshops

PC Beer came up with the idea and organised the event after realising that many of the individuals getting injured in knife crime and gang violence would seek help from their community sports leaders in the first instance, rather than the police or ambulance service. This was delaying the amount of time it took for emergency services to be alerted and provide necessary life-saving care.

Through providing first aid training to well-trusted community leaders in the area and building strong relationships with Luton Street League, an extra layer of care can be provided to young people injured in gang violence and open further opportunities to engage with those affected by knife crime.

PC Steven Beer said: “It has been a very rewarding experience creating this project, from its initial idea phase to seeing it through to completion. I am very grateful for Luton Street League for their participation and for TrainEEAST for completing the training for us. I look forward to working together with everyone again in the future, so we can continue our work to help those affected by gang violence and reduce knife crime in the community.”

Sergeant Karanjit Sanghera, who works alongside PC Beer in the Community Cohesion team at Bedfordshire Police, said: “Events like this that Steven has organised are very important in the role of Community Cohesion. It shows how we can work well with our partner organisations, and also helps to build trust in our communities that have been impacted by violent crime. I am pleased to see this initiative has been received well in the creation and management of this project.”

Daniel Douglas, Community Operations Manager at Luton Town FC Community Trust said ”This great initiative and the training means we will have trained staff at all of our events that seek to improve community cohesion amongst the Town’s young people.”