Premier League Kicks Targeted
The Millwall Premier League Targeted Kicks programme is designed to engage with young people 11-17-year olds identified due to their offending behaviour through police custody at Lewisham Police Station. The Club have an established Millwall Custody Intervention Coach within the Police Station who is alerted by custody staff to individuals that meet a specific referral criteria who may benefit from the Millwall programme, intervention and targeted support. Following an assessment and referral process the potential beneficiary is then referred on to the Millwall Premier League Targeted Kicks Officer who develops an overarching and individual programme of support. The aim of the programme is to prevent young people from repeat offending supporting them and their family to make improved life choices and increase the protective factors in their lives.
By empowering young people to make improved life choice the focus is on ensuring they are safer with a reduced risk of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence. The programme will work with a specific group of young people invariably arrested for violence, weapon and drug related offences (subject to thresholding and risk assessment).
Millwall have determined that at this stage there is a small cohort of offenders that they are unable to engage with due to the complexity of offending; individuals arrested for arson or sexual offences. The Premier League Kicks Targeted line manager is also the Millwall Custody Intervention Coach who is based at Lewisham Police Station. They will connect a young person and their respective appropriate adult to the Millwall Premier League Kicks Targeted Officer who will be appointed on a 2 days per week contract for 2 years.
Together with the young person and the appropriate adult, Millwall Custody Intervention Coach and Millwall Premier League Kicks Targeted Officer, they will devise an action plan aimed at; reintegration into mainstream education, assigning the Millwall Premier League Kicks Targeted Officer as a mentor, enrolment into extracurricular activity, if aged over 16 – options for apprenticeships, holistic family and sibling support referred directly into Early Help. The Millwall Premier League Kicks Targeted programme will aim to work with 2 referrals per months, 24 throughout the year through the police custody. The Targeted Kicks programme will be working with the support of specific partnered organisations including New Era Foundation who have significant expertise in working with young people involved in criminal exploitation both as perpetrators and victims together with the Metropolitan Police.