Violence Prevention Network

Violence Prevention Network is a group of experienced specialists who have been successfully engaged in anti-violence work and the prevention of extremism, as well as in the de-radicalisation of extremist-motivated criminals, for a number of years. In the method of Verantwortungspädagogik® (Education of Responsibility), Violence Prevention Network has identified a way to address people who have affiliated themselves with anti-democratic structures without humiliating them, thus facilitating their reversion to the democratic community.

Vision of Violence Prevention Network is that ideologically vulnerable people and violent offenders motivated by extremism change their behaviour through deradicalisation efforts, lead independent lives and become part of the democratic community, in order to prevent extremism of any kind.

Violence Prevention Network works to ensure that people have the tools and resources available to reflect on and overcome their previous behaviour patterns. The goal is to enable them to live a life in which they do not harm themselves or others.

Interventions

CROSSROADS – Counselling – Prevention – Deradicalisation

Target group: Teenagers and young adults who are at risk of undergoing a process of radicalisation; Teenagers and young adults who are noticeably undergoing a process of radicalisation in the far-right extremist scene and have yet to express motivation for breaking away from it; Teenagers and young adults who wish to exit the far-right extremist scene; Young people with an affinity for far-right ideologies and/or scenes; Family and supporters of teenagers and young people who wish or do not wish to disengage from far-right ideologies and/or scenes; Teachers, youth workers, sports clubs and other persons in contact with young extremists or young people at risk of radicalisation.
Location: Berlin
Main actions: Workshops for youth, young adults and school children; Anti-Gewalt- und Kompetenztrainings; Workshops for teachers and pedagogues; Counselling in schools, youth clubs, sports clubs and youth welfare offices; Ausstiegsbegleitung.

AL-MANARA - Counselling and attendance for unaccompanied minor refugees

Target group: unaccompanied minor refugees
Location: Berlin
Main Actions: In 2015 almost 80.000 Refugees came to Berlin. Over 4.000 of them were unaccompanied minors. This group is especially vulnerable and prone to islamistic recruitement. Violence Prevention Network has therefore installed a programme to counsel and attend unaccompanied minor refugees to immunize them against salafist extremism and islamistic recruiters.

"Demystify extremism!" – Preventive educational work with young people

Target group: Students from the 9th year and participants from the age of 14 and older; Colleague of schools and und youth welfare service.
Location: School and youth welfare services, Hessen
Main Actions: Workshops - The model project "Demystify extremism!" is an answer to the growing need to use preventative political education in order to address the phenomenon of religious extremism. The goal is to provide education about extremism and recruitment strategies as well as to develop strategies for youth when signs of radicalisation arise in peer groups. Other objectives are to demystify the phenomenon of jihadism and to increase the ability of young people to distance themselves from extremism.

Taking Responsibility - Breaking away from Hate and Violence / Deradicalisation in prison

Target group: Young violent offenders; The participation takes place on a voluntary basis.
Location: Berlin, Brandenburg, Hessen, Niedersachsen und Sachsen
Main Actions: de-radicalisation training in three phases: 1) Group training; 2) Transition management; 3) Stabilisation coaching. The intention of Taking Responsibility – Breaking away from Hate and Violence is, to enable young people who are arrested for ideologically motivated acts of violence (right-wing extremists or radical Islamists) to live a responsible and non-violent life and to develop distance to inhuman ideologies.

Präfix R - Coaching for parents in detention

Target group: Parents who: a) have ideologically entrenched right-wing extremist views and convictions, are themselves members of radicalised groups or are considering joining such groups and are deemed to be passing on their convictions to their children consciously or purposefully or even without reflection; b) align themselves with humanistic fundamental values and also profess that these guide their parenting principles, yet note that their children are turning to radicalised.
Location: several prisons in Berlin
Main actions: Coaching Sessions, in groups or separate - A core impetus for conceptualising the pilot project Präfix R was the insight that there is not just a paucity of propositions for parents who have been taken into custody, but that their children, too, rank among a neglected, barely heeded target group, although the few studies and publications available on children of imprisoned parents do point out their high degree of vulnerability. The pilot project Präfix R has set itself the goal of strengthening the resilience of imprisoned mothers and fathers by way of the work undertaken with the children's parents, and of protecting them from joining radicalised, right-wing extremist groups.
Additional information: Official Website

KOMPASS Advice Centre

Target group: people affiliated to Islamic-motivated extremism
Location: mobile
Main action: The "Kompass Advice Centre" aims to dissuade people affiliated to Islamic-motivated extremism from their propensity for violence and to prevent departures to destinations in civil war-torn regions in Syria and Iraq. Similarly, work with so-called returnees is a component of the programme.
Additional Information: Official website