Video: Education Authority official Arlene Kee says Derry youth diversion saw decrease in petrol bombs, plastic bullets, live rounds and child arrests

Arlene Kee, assistant director of the EA’s young people’s services, said progress in diverting young people from paramilitary activity in Derry had been marked.

She told members of the Stormont Education Committee that targeted youth work was steering thousands of young people away from potential involvement in criminality across the North.

But Derry was an exemplar, she said.

“The focus of the programme is to increase capacity to resist negative influences whilst reducing the influence paramilitary groups have over those young people.

“The ongoing achievement of that work was most evident in Derry/Londonderry when in 2018 425 petrol bombs were reduced to 25. In 2019, 13 plastic bullets were reduced to zero.”

She added that in relation to arrests, in 2018 there were 38 arrests, of which 17 involved children, which were reduced to one adult last year.

Ms. Kee said youth camps at EA’s Ballyhome outdoor camp site outside Portrush helped keep young people off the streets during times of tension.

“The outcomes achieved in that project link directly to the reduction of youth violence in Derry/Londonderry, as noted,” she said.