Social workers tackling anti-social behaviour with ‘young person friendly’ trams

Ben Herriman, 25, from Warrington, is a social worker at charity Manchester Youth Zone, located in north Manchester.

Figures obtained by The Oldham Times in May reveal that more than 40 per cent of crime or antisocial behaviour on public transport in Greater Manchester is "youth-related".

Ben has been involved with Manchester Youth Zone for four years, starting off as a football coach.

Now a manager at the charity, Ben runs the program reaching out to young people on the streets, spending two nights a week on Oldham/Rochdale line trams, with funding from Metrolink.

Youth workers chose to focus on this line first as they say it is "the number one hotspot for anti-social behaviour" – a sentiment backed up by the statistics.

Oldham’s tram line has been identified as the worst for anti-social behaviour

Ben said: “We want to change some of the perceptions around what young people are like on trams – that it’s not that they’re all bad and they’re all involved in anti-social behaviour.

“For example, if they’re jumping on the tram and not paying – is there a reason for that?

"It might be they can’t afford it and they need to get home safely.”

The social workers are working in partnership with Manchester’s TravelSafe officers.

As part of their work, they try to engage with young people, as opposed to simply removing them from the tram.

Ben added: “We’ve had a couple of hotspots so far – so Oldham Central is a great one for engaging with young people.

Ben Herriman is a social worker at Manchester Youth Zone

“There are lots of young people around there because there are colleges and shops.

“Once we get to those stops, we have conversations with young people and they’re natural.

"So, if we see people that are messing around or being dangerous and acting in silly ways, then we’ll have those conversations about why they shouldn’t be acting like that.

“I think it’s working really well as they don’t see us as Metrolink staff.

“They see us as youth workers and the engagement is a lot better with us.

“When you’re in a uniform, that authority comes with it and I think young people don’t tend to like that.”

While the charity works with TravelSafe officers and the police, Ben pointed out that they are different.

Shorts and a t-shirt, rather than high visibility jackets, are the uniform of choice – something Ben thinks leads to a better rapport with young people who may have encountered uniformed officers before.

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Ben said: “We’ve got some really good engagement with the TravelSafe officers, informing us of things that have gone on down the line, which has been positive.

“There’s definitely been some negatives with that as well – all that doom and gloom.

"We spoke with a couple of TSOs that were selling it as a massive problem that was going across the system with all these kids running riot – but actually, I think it was overexaggerated a bit.

“We’re slowly getting there with it, but some of the staff don’t really understand what we’re doing and what our purpose is: we’re not there to police, we’re there to youth work – which is completely different.

“We are there to deal with anti-social behaviour, we’re not there to drag people off the tram.”

Ben thinks sometimes a more forceful approach, while sometimes needed, can be counterproductive.

He said “We’ve seen it where a young person may be vaping on the tram, and within 30 seconds that young person has been removed from the tram.

“I think there needs to be more of a young-person friendly approach with an understanding that they are kids, they are going to make mistakes.

“If it’s constant, then yes – let’s remove them from the tram.

“But at the same time, we need to sit down and have these conversations before just getting your backup and having a go at a young person for breaking a rule”

“I think probably the one change we would like to try to help Metrolink staff implement is having more of a young-person friendly approach, about how we can support young people across the service.”

Asked about a possible link between the cost-of-living crisis and anti-social behaviour, Ben said: “I think poverty comes with crime and anti-social behaviour.

"It’s not the only reason – but it’s a massive thing.

“A lack of things to do, as well – when you look at things like playing football for a football club – it might be your passion, but if it costs £20 a month and you can’t afford it, you can’t play.”