About Growing Against Violence
Growing Against Violence (GAV) is a charity that aims to protect young people against peer-to-peer violence and exploitation both on the streets and online. The charity grew out of a partnership with London’s Metropolitan Police Service and since 2008 GAV has delivered workshops to over 197,000 young people in over 940 schools.
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GAV sees violence as a disease that is preventable rather than inevitable and examines the causes of violence using a listening and investigative approach that teases out issues specific to local communities. The charity follows the World Health Organisation’s ‘public health approach to tackling violence’, using data to identify risk factors for violence and the delivery of evidence-based violence prevention workshops.
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The Board and Senior Management have personal and professional expertise in violence prevention. This unique partnership brings together senior professionals from health, law, policing, academia, accounting, IT and the private sector to provide effective governance and enable the charity to thrive and expand.
BOARD MEMBERS
ALLEN DAVIS
CHAIR
Allen is one of the co-founders of GAV. As well as being Chair, he is co-author of the GAV curriculum. He is an Inspector in the Metropolitan Police, having joined in 1996 after graduating from Durham University. Currently, he leads the MPS operational response to Harmful Practices, Honour Based Abuse, Chemsex and Sex Work. He is the author of 'Guidance for Schools and Colleges: Safeguarding Children from Sexual Violence, CSE and Harmful Practices’ available here.
MAIRE CLEARY
DEPUTY CHAIR
Maire is a Customer & User Experience practitioner and helps organisations develop insights for innovation, build new capability and grow. Originally from Ireland, she has led customer transformation programmes in the public and private sector in the UK and internationally. Lexis Nexis, the BBC, Thomson Reuters and Evaluate are a few of the leading organisations she has helped to bring new products to market and transform their service models. Máire got involved with GAV in 2015 and became a trustee in 2016.
CHRIS HEAWOOD
TREASURER
Chris graduated from Durham University and qualified as a Chartered Accountant (ACA) in 2013. He worked at Deloitte for seven years before joining Apiary Capital as an Investment Manager.
EDWARD BROWN, QC
Edward is a Barrister and has an outstanding practice in criminal law. He has prosecuted and defended in many notable and sensitive cases, including murder, terrorism, corporate manslaughter and corruption. He provides seminars to young, often associated men, on the consequences of knife crimes, violence and sexual offending.
DR DUNCAN BEW
Duncan is a consultant surgeon at King’s College London and is involved in the Global Surgery work at the Centre. He is Clinical Lead for Trauma & Emergency Surgery at King’s College Hospital and the South East Kent and Medway (SELKAM) trauma network. He is also an honorary Trauma Consultant at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.
PROFESSOR SIMON HARDING
Simon is a Professor in Criminology at the University of West London. He has published extensively on topics such as hate crime, gangs and group offending, community safety, policing, youth justice, status dogs and dog fighting. He regularly appears in the media as a Criminology commentator.
MIKE HOWES
CHARITY SECRETARY
Mike was former Head of Community Safety in two different London Boroughs over a period of more than 15 years. He is also a member of the Independent Monitoring Board at Brixton Prison. Mike has significant experience in designing policies to combat youth crime, substance misuse, violent crime and domestic violence.
JONATHAN RODDICK
Jonathan is an experienced educationalist with over 20 years experience in the sector. For many years he has been involved with schools facing challenging circumstances and is involved in teacher training and improving the quality of teaching. Jonathan is an Ofsted Inspector working in the London region and a member of The Howard Partnership Trust's Executive Leadership Team. He works closely with primary and secondary schools and leads on safeguarding across the Trust.
OPERATIONAL TEAM
STUART TRAYLER
CEO
Stuart has previously held senior positions in the public sector and has led staff in multi-disciplinary team environments. He has advised colleagues and partners on community safety issues throughout the world.
SHAUN WILLSHIRE
SAFEGUARDING MANAGER
Shaun is a School Governor at Walderslade girls school. He has safeguarding expertise across many different areas in the public and private sectors.
MARTIN GUEST
OPERATIONS MANAGER
Martin has extensive organisational, leadership and strategic management skills. He is a qualified Event Management Planner.
GAV STRATEGIC ADVISORS
We work with experts across business, academia, public policy and national charities.
Our valued advisors include:
Dr James Densley (Founder Member and original curriculum design)
Michelle Lyttle Storrod (Curriculum design)
Mary Gibson
Maziar Jamnejad
Jon Hook