Who we are
Established in 2019 through the Home Office Violence Reduction Unit fund, the Wales Violence Prevention Unit is a partnership between the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner, Public Health Wales, and South Wales Police.
Each organisation contributes funding, expertise, and resources to achieve the joint ambition of preventing violence through a public health approach. To do this, the core team work closely with over 30 multisectoral organisations, including health, policing, education, local authorities, governments, and the third sector, supporting a whole-system approach to preventing violence in Wales.
Taking a public health approach means that we seek to understand the causes of violence based on evidence. We use this evidence to develop interventions focused on the underlying causes of violence. We properly evaluate these interventions before scaling up each one to help more people and communities across Wales. Through this approach we aim to develop a whole system response to the prevention of violence.
Who’s involved
Meet the team
Daniel Jones, Interim Head of the Violence Prevention Unit
Daniel joins the Violence Prevention Unit from the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office, where he was Head of Partnerships.
Lara Snowdon, Violence Prevention Programme Lead, Public Health Wales
Lara leads the public health team in the VPU. In this role, she leads our work on the strategic development of a public health approach to violence prevention. She manages a multi-disciplinary team of public health researchers, analysts and communications specialists who provide public health and policing expertise and technical support to our range of partners.
Emma Barton, Violence Prevention Outcomes Manager, Public Health Wales
Emma joins the Violence Prevention Unit from Public Health Wales, where she led a research team to deliver a number of research and evaluation projects.
Dr Alex Walker, Violence Prevention Outcomes Officer, Public Health Wales
Alex is the evaluation lead for the Violence Prevention Unit, and has also conducted valuable research, including research on the experiences of bystanders to domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bryony Parry, Communications and Engagement Lead, Public Health Wales
Bryony leads on all communications and engagement activity for the Violence Prevention Unit, including events, campaigns and consultations. Bryony also leads on co-production, working closely with the Peer Action Collective Cymru to ensure the Unit’s work is informed by the views and experiences of children and young people.
Anthony Moyle, Police Lead, South Wales Police
Prior to joining the VPU Anthony was the Chief Inspector in Mid Glamorgan BCU, working within Neighbourhood Policing and Community Safety and Partnerships where he had dual role responsibility and oversight of both departments. As the Police Lead in the Violence Prevention Unit, he will support the three South Wales Police command unit areas whilst adopting cohesive working practices with stakeholders to reduce levels of violence and harm throughout Wales.
Shauna Pike, Violence Prevention Outcomes Officer/ Researcher, Public Health Wales
Shauna is a researcher within the Wales Violence Prevention Unit. She is responsible for the creation of multiple data-driven reports on a South Wales and more localised level, as well as assisting with research projects.
Muqaddasa Abdul Wahid, Communications Support Officer, Public Health Wales
Muqaddasa supports the communications and engagement activity within the Violence Prevention Unit. She is responsible for managing the VPU website and social media channels- including content creation and analysing content performance on various channels, to ensure all communications and engagement activities reach and are engaged with by their target audience.
Molly Hardy, Administrative Support Officer, Office of the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner
Molly joins us from the South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner's Office to provide administration support to the Violence Prevention Unit, build relationships with our partners and providers, and assist in the oversight of our funded interventions.
Detective Inspector Claire Morgan, South Wales Police
Currently overseeing the operational strand of the Home office Hotspot policing pilot.