RHE Global trainer Anna Smith is running sessions on links between anti-social behaviour and mental health. She places empathy, education, encouragement and, finally, enforcement at the heart of her philosophy. She talked to Will Hatchett.
Anna Smith’s career has been dominated by one theme. She explains: “I’ve lived and breathed anti-social behaviour. It’s the area I’ve worked in from the age of 18, when I started at the bottom of the ladder as an enforcement officer in Darlington.”
Her positive and practical forthrightness has served her well. Twenty years after these relatively humble beginnings, Smith, who lives in the North-East, was a senior manager for the large northern town, heading a comprehensive community safety service that took in private sector housing, CCTV and car parking.
The holistic role, she explains, included all aspects of ASB and environmental crime, including dealing with stray dogs and abandoned vehicles. Her career, along the way, had taken working in youth offending, reparative justice and victim support and obtaining an LLB law degree and multiple professional qualifications.
Smith was the first person in her county, in 2017, to use new closure powers to shut down a drug house that was blighting an entire street. She successfully applied for multiple civil injunctions, never losing a case, and three public space protection orders (PSPOs).
Trailblazer for new powers
In 2022, she was chosen to lead the Home Office’s ASB trailblazer project in Darlington. The role came with £300,000 in funding. She recalls: “I was able to put more officers on the ground, getting really good neighbourhood policing, where you speak to people to identify their concerns and come up with strategies to deal with them.”
A combination of social and environmental issues, some seemingly minor but actually very important, make up for a safe and well-liked neighbourhood. The main issue in an ASB hotspot, she notes, could be youth crime or street drinking. Or it could be dog fouling or littering.
Before the trailblazer project, Smith had led on implementing the powers of the 2014 ASB, Crime and Policing Act across Darlington – legislation that gave officers a new set of tools, some of which were controversial, to make neighbourhoods safer.
Timeliness is vital in dealing with problems if public confidence is to be achieved and maintained. The new powers, while sensitive to the multiple causes of ASB, facilitated more rapid action for victims whose lives had sometimes been made hell for years.
For example, she recalls of the drug house which she led on shutting down in 2017: “You had the immediate neighbours, but I would say that at least 15 households in the street were affected by the issue that just one property was causing. They had suffered for months, but the police hadn’t been able to do anything, and they had come to the council literally begging for support. When the house was closed, the residents came outside. They were standing in the street clapping.”
Need for joined-up policies
While Smith welcomed criminal behaviour orders, civil injunctions, PSPOs and new powers replacing the previous crack house laws that the 2014 act brought, she has never advocated an enforcement-led approach.
She says: “I believe that addressing ASB requires a balance of enforcement, education, empathy and support. My training focuses on helping participants to understand the root causes of ASB, to use effective conflict resolution techniques and to adopt evidence-based strategies for prevention and intervention.”
The powers, she says, need to be applied proportionately and supported by consistent local authority policies. She notes: “A housing strategy should always refer to policies and procedures for both the victims and perpetrators of ASB. I see so many where there’s not even a mention of them. Straight away, that sets alarm bells ringing.”
There must also be efficient case management, regular multi-agency meetings, clear action plans with identified leads and the encouragement of ‘peer challenge’ – with officers emboldened to report their concern to a manager if they believe that a colleague has failed to act appropriately.
She adds: “Essentially, for me, it’s about building relationships. In many cases, people are working in silos. Things don’t change until a serious case review looks at what went wrong, and it often comes down to poor communication.”
Mental health issues
A holistic approach to ASB is likely to identify that poor mental health can lead to undesirable behaviours in the community. She notes: “I’ve been the lead in several cases where people were placed in social housing supported by charities, and problems were caused by a lack of support. It’s a telling statistic that 45% of people experiencing homelessness have been diagnosed with a mental health issue, rising to 80% for people sleeping rough.”
Traditionally, she says, health professionals have been the hardest to bring to the table for multi-agency meetings. However, she believes that this is now changing. She argues that there have been many improvements to how ASB is tackled since she began working in the field two decades ago.
She says: “Things are far better now than when I started. We’ve come a long way in case management and communication. I think that technology will drive this process. In terms of new apps, I think further development of a local authority ASB reporting app would be beneficial, supporting the use of diary sheets.”
Having left her role in Darlington last year, Smith is now keen to share what she has learned over her many years of practice as a trainer and consultant. She says: “I want to fulfil my passion by empowering practitioners to manage casework effectively and to build their confidence in using their tools and powers.”
She notes that, while local authority budgets are stretched, creating good systems and building relationships to tackle ASB doesn’t cost anything. The results can be seen and heard in communities that benefit from such enlightened practices. There is less environmental blight – litter, graffiti and dumped rubbish – and less crime. People are happy to live, work and socialise. In the best cases, they are smiling.
