Anti-Slavery Champions Project gets underway in Durham

The County Durham and Darlington Police and Crime Commissioner has announced an innovative Anti-Slavery Training Project in partnership with Snowdrop, and January marked the first phase of training for the Anti-Slavery Champions.

The Anti-Slavery Champions are a cohort of frontline professionals and first responders who will act as a single point of contact across the Durham area and within their own organisations. The Champions will provide advice and guidance to their workforce by putting into practice what they have learnt. This will help to reduce the threat and harm caused by modern slavery and human trafficking, and improve the response to survivors.

The three-year project is being delivered via the County Durham Anti-Slavery Network – an organisation bringing multiple agencies together to share information, improve intelligence gathering and ensure the county is better equipped to respond to victims.

In January, Snowdrop delivered bespoke training to the Champions which provided an introduction to the issue of modern slavery. The training aimed to raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking, including how to spot the signs and how to respond appropriately to disclosures of modern slavery.

The Durham Police and Crime Commissioner said: "We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Snowdrop Project for their vital input into this project, and for supporting the vision of making the communities of County Durham and Darlington safer, stronger, and more resilient to crime and anti-social behaviour."

We’re so excited that champions across a variety of organisations have committed to this three-year project, developing their practice and helping other professionals improve the response to modern slavery across County Durham.

We look forward to working with Durham Police and Crime Commissioner and Durham Anti-Slavery Network to deliver this training project. We'll share more news of the project when we can!