Exploitation and Violence 101 Training - What Every Business Needs to Know

Exploitation and Violence 101 – What Every Business Needs to Know

Duration: Half-day (3.5 hours)

Audience: Businesses and frontline staff across Cheltenham — including managers, customer-facing teams, HR, security, and community partners

Location: Pittville Room, The Municipal Offices

Format: Interactive, trauma-informed, scenario-based learning

Summary:

This training, delievered by St Giles Trust, in partnership with Cheltenham BID and Cheltenham Borough Council, is designed to equip businesses with the essential knowledge and confidence to recognise, respond to, and help prevent exploitation and violence in their local community. Many businesses, knowingly or unknowingly, operate in spaces where exploitation — including grooming, County Lines activity, and youth violence — may be present or facilitated. This session helps turn awareness into action.

What you’ll learn:

• What exploitation and violence really look like in 2025 — from County Lines to coercive control.
• How businesses can be used — knowingly or unknowingly — to facilitate harm.
• The warning signs to look out for in staff, customers, and public spaces.
• How to report concerns and respond safely, without overstepping.
• What you can do to make your workplace part of the solution.
• Whether you're in retail, hospitality, transport, housing, or any customer-facing role — this session will give you the awareness, tools, and confidence to make a difference.
• Let’s build a safer Cheltenham — together.

About the trainer:

Junior Smart joined St Giles Trust in 2006 upon his release from prison from where he served a 10 year sentence for a drug and gang related offence. With support from St Giles Trust he is credited in developing the award winning SOS Gangs project, London’s largest ex-offender gangs exit programme. Covering 15 London boroughs and employing a team comprising predominately of ex-offenders. Since its inception, the SOS Project has worked with thousands of vulnerable and marginalised young people safely exit group offending and violence. This year it is on target to reach over 700 young people caught up in Serious group offending and has won numerous awards and recognition, including the South London Press Awards 2008 and the Centre for Social Justice Awards in 2009.

Junior Smart is not only a Youth Leader but a qualified trainer and recognised violence intervention specialist. Despite dropping out of education at the age of 14 he has achieved a First Class degree in Youth Work and Distinction in his MA in Criminology, Youth Crime and Justice. Whilst undertaking his PhD at Middlesex University into the connection between gangs and families he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Greenwich University in Education. In 2020 he was included in Her Majesty the Queens New Year’s Honour List receiving an OBE for recognition of his work with young people in tackling youth violence.

His main focus continues to centre on Violence Desistance in all its forms and he regularly designs new projects, feeds into public policy through Public Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Justice and consults with the Met Police as well as other statutory bodies on best practice.

Tickets:

Tickets are free* for Cheltenham BID levy paying businesses and a £20 charitable donation to St Giles Trust for non-levy paying businesses. There is a maximum allocation of 3 tickets per business.

*While these tickets are free to attendees, please be aware that each one represents a real cost to the BID. We kindly ask that if you reserve a ticket, you honour your commitment to attend. No-shows prevent other businesses from taking advantage of the opportunity. Due to a high number of non-attendances at previous events, failure to cancel your ticket with at least 48 hours’ notice may result in restrictions on your ability to register for future events. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in helping us deliver successful events for everyone.