Two new end users join the IMPACT Europe consortium
As of 1 January 2015, Cultures Interactive e.V. of Germany and SSP Sorø of Denmark are members of the IMPACT Europe consortium. The two organisations complement a group of end users on the consortium, which otherwise consists of the Dutch National Police and Radical Middle Way from the United Kingdom.
IMPACT Europe consortium end users have a crucial role to play in the project, especially when it comes to ensuring the robustness of the design and the effectiveness of the piloting of the IMPACT Europe evaluation toolkit. Thus, throughout the process of designing the toolkit, which will enable practitioners to make use of structured information about good practice in the field of anti-radicalisation interventions, consortium end users will provide the information and input necessary to effectively use the toolkit and also contribute to the design of a training course and manual in support of the evaluation toolkit. The input of consortium end users will also shape the training material accompanying the toolkit, thus enabling the consortium to convey a sound understanding of, to garner enthusiasm for, and to support appropriate execution of the IMPACT Europe evaluation methodology. Most importantly, end user consortium partners will contribute to the validation of the toolkit by piloting it and by giving feedback on its user friendliness, utility, and contribution to capacity building.
Cultures Interactive e.V. was founded in 2002 in Berlin, Germany, with the aim of targeting right wing extremism and Neonazism, which had gained in magnitude in Eastern Germany following German reunification. Subsequently, Cultures Interactive e.V. also began to intervene in inner-city districts struck by migration-related radical ethnic and religious tensions. Cultures Interactive e.V. has piloted a range of innovative and sustainable approaches to prevent and counter youth extremism/fundamentalism, polarisation, and violence and to promote resilience building within civil society. In doing so, Cultures Interactive e.V. has put particular emphasis on developing methods for difficult-to-engage adolescent populations that are not appropriately addressed by existing educational and/or cognitive-behavioural interventions. Cultures Interactive e.V. is currently also engaged in a range of national and EU projects on best practice research, including through the Radicalisation Awareness Network.
SSP Sorø is part of the municipality administration of Sorø Kommune, is made up of a cooperation of schools, social administration, and police (SSP), and is concerned exclusively with youth crime prevention work. Denmark has been on the forefront of pioneering the SSP model in tackling radicalisation and youth crime. The SSP network of 98 municipal entities is organised along Denmark’s 12 police districts. SSP Sorø is chairing its police districts’ SSP council and also hosts the ‘Info House.’ The Info House engages in awareness raising, capacity building, staff training, and also handles all concerns regarding youth extremism in each of the 7 municipalities in the police district. Since 2009 SSPs have spearheaded early prevention of extremism through a partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Danish Intelligence Service. The SSP approach has been validated by leading experts in the field, such as Tore Bjørgo and Magnus Ranstorp, who are both members of the Radicalisation Awareness Network and who noted that countries across the globe would be in a better position to prevent terrorism if they adopted the SSP model.