June 2008

Training - Library staff and police community support coordinators have been trained on the ARCH system so that they can now take details of racist incidents.

New partners - Unity Organisation and the University of Sunderland Students' Union are to become partners in the ARCH project.

Development plan - ARCH has the potential to expand its remit and move into the reporting of other types of hate crime and could play a significant role in the provision of anti-discrimination training in Sunderland.  A development plan is being drafted at the moment to look at this in more detail.

December 2007

A press release went out about ARCH at the end of November - read it here online. 

Publicity material for ARCH has been distributed around Sunderland - if you or your organisation would like some, please email sunderlandarch@sunderland.gov.uk

ARCH has been in discussions with more agencies about joining the partnership:

UNITE

Unite is a high quality mediation and conciliation service committed to bringing about early resolution to conflict in society.  This will offer victims and/or perpetrators of racist harassment another option to follow.

Libraries

Library staff will hopefully be able to take reports of racist incidents from people using the library. 

October 2007

There's an article about ARCH in the latest edition of the Council's Sunrise magazine.  Click here to read it - it's on pages 6 and 7.  This is the first major publicity about ARCH to go out throughout Sunderland.

The rest of the publicity material for ARCH will be distributed in mid October.  If you or your organisation would like some of this material, please email sunderlandarch@sunderland.gov.uk

More new partners have joined the ARCH partnership:

Neighbourhood Relations Team - Sunderland City Council

This team can investigate complaints of racially motivated anti-social behaviour .  They can also speak to perpetrators to make them aware of the effects of their behaviour and take appropriate enforcement action if necessary.

Sunderland Bangladeshi Community Centre

This will be an ARCH reporting centre so that people using the centre can report racist incidents to trained workers.

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service

They are working closely with ARCH to look at arson and attempted arson cases, as well as making sure residents have smoke alarms fitted.

Sunderland Primary Care Trust, Home Housing and the South Forum are all interested in becoming involved in the ARCH partnership, either by distributing publicity material, becoming reporting centres or taking referrals.

August 2007

ARCH is live!  ARCH went live across Sunderland on 9th July 2007.  All the partners agencies have staff trained on how to input incidents on to the system, meaning that victims of racist harassment can be offered various forms of support and action can be taken against perpetrators.  Each agency worker using the system has their own username and password to access the reporting site.  More frontline staff are being trained over summer so that the major launch of ARCH will take place in the autumn.  A date for the launch will be advertised shortly.

New partners

Over the summer some new agencies have joined the ARCH partnership:

Young Asian Voices are keen to become a reporting centre so that young people involved in their projects will be able to report incidents to designated workers.

Safe Partnership Limited provide extra home security for victims of hate crime and will become a referral agency.

The Council's Neighbourhood Relations Team, the Arson Task Force and the Youth Offending Service are all in the process of deciding how they can become involved in the ARCH partnership.

If you have any questions about ARCH please telephone 0191 553 2480 or email sunderlandarch@sunderland.gov.uk