Natasha Pope

As an undergraduate student at Birmingham City University, Natasha arranged for external guest speaker Alison Cope to deliver a talk on the reality of being a victim of crime.

Alison's son Joshua Ribera, otherwise known as the grime artist Depzman, was fatally stabbed in Birmingham in 2013. Having known victims of knife crime, including Joshua, Natasha decided she wanted to know how we could help practitioners such as Alison in their work, preventing youth knife crime.

Following a meeting with former knife crime lead for the West Midlands Police in December 2018, Natasha was permitted to conduct research into police led school-based anti-knife crime interventions within the West Midlands which formed the basis of her MSc thesis.

Natasha has also assisted in the WMP run World Cafe's engaging with young people directly to understand the deeper issues such as perceptions of the police and Stop and Search measures. She also had the opportunity to network with practitioners and visit interventions both within and outside of the West Midlands.

Alongside this, Natasha is a member of the C.H.O.I.C.E.S network; a collaboration between the West Midlands Police, P.C.C'S office, teachers, practitioners and academics from Birmingham City University and University of Wolverhampton to develop ways to help teachers identify vulnerable or at risk pupils. She also had the opportunity to sit as a representative on a national board, advising police and practice for the National Fraud Forum and to network with Intelligence Analysts from the WMP.

Natasha hopes to gain experience in lecturing psychology at Birmingham City University and to continue researching knife crime and serious youth violence in future.