About the Lewisham SNB
The Lewisham Safer Neighbourhood Board (SNB) is an independent forum where communities can meet the police, local authority and other partners, to discuss local policing and other aspects of community safety.
The group has representation on London wide bodies and the Safer Lewisham Partnership, which is the Council’s Community Safety Partnership. SNB Officers have regular meetings with the Borough Commander and are contacted when serious incidents take place.
Board Responsibilities
The Board was set up to monitor and scrutinise the performance of Lewisham Police, including public confidence, victim satisfaction and complaints, to help establish local policing and crime priorities and to provide a critical overview of local policing issues.
The Board aims to Increase public accountability of Lewisham Police by reflecting community interests and concerns, providing an environment to share views and giving Lewisham residents a greater voice with regards to policing, crime and community safety.
The Board also administrates the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime’s (MOPAC) annual grant to Lewisham. Local groups are invited to submit funding bids for projects that will reduce crime and reoffending or focus on engaging and including Lewisham communities that are not involved with the crime and policing agenda, and support them in helping to make their communities safer.
Meetings
The Board meets four times a year, usually at the Civic Suite, but we have been utilising the Microsoft Teams Platform to ensure that we are working in a COVID-safe way. Please look at the events page to find out the details of the next public meeting. Now that restriction have been lifted, we will continue to revisit the safest way in which to deliver these meetings. Each meeting has a guest speaker, who gives a presentation on some aspect of policing or the criminal justice system.
These meetings are open to members of the public and provide a unique opportunity for members of the community to ask questions to the Police and the Safer Communities strand of Lewisham Council.
When necessary we hold special meetings and day conferences on issues deemed to be important to the community.
Please refer to the ‘Special Interest Areas‘ tab of the website to find out more about our meetings.
Board Membership
The Board has six community members, who serve for three years. These are elected annually from a register of affiliated community groups which operate in Lewisham.
The remainder of the board is comprised of representatives from named Lewisham voluntary and statutory organisations who have an interest or work within the criminal justice system.
These organisations include the Stop and Search Monitoring Group, SNT Ward Panels, the Independent Custody Visitors, the Police Independent Advisory Group, the Hate Crime Group, a Councillor, two youth representatives, Victim Support and the Business Community.
Board members attend separate strategy meetings to plan and organise meetings, to select and process applications for grant funding and to monitor successful projects.
Please click here for the Terms of Reference, the Code of Conduct and role description.
Dr. Rosemarie Ramsay MBE (Chairperson)
Rosemarie joined Lewisham Safer Neighbour Board to work with local people, board members
and allied services to make Lewisham a safer and stronger place to live, work and belong. This
means focussing on the issues for local people: tackling and reducing neighbourhood crime,
anti-social behaviour and serious violence. The expectation is an improvement in trust, less
crime and high standards.
The skills, capabilities and attributes that Rosemarie bring to the SNB include working across
diverse sectors: business, public, private and VCSE, both at strategic and operational levels,
leading strategic improvement and transformational change across a range of service types. This
has resulted in the ability to lead with personal and professional integrity, be innovative and
imaginative, demonstrate her ability to influence, operate and get ‘buy in’ or agree to disagree
by challenging the idea, not the person. She is able to deal with changing landscapes, manage
difficult situations and conversations.
Rosemarie's leadership style and work ethics is influence by a range of factors including;
legislation, Nolan Principle of Public Duty, Social Justice & Human Rights.
Collet Hunter (Vice-Chairperson)
Collet actively works with community groups to bridge the gap to vulnerable victims. Founder and CEO of JRHYS and a certified counsellor under the capacity of making referrals. Collet embraces her journey and the loss of their first born to violence continues to keep her passion alive to make positive changes in the Borough of Lewisham. Wellbeing workshops are delivered in schools and the local community with the focus on early intervention measures.
Author of ‘Five Years Later’, her book is used to help deliver the ‘realistic Optimism’ workshop in schools and their ‘sIp n tAlk’ platform supports victims of violence. They also sit on the team that monitors calls to the police across London and their work with the local Police in creating awareness of knife crime and it’s consequences is ongoing.
Some of the work JRHYS have undertaken in the community can be found here
Joe Burchell (Treasurer)
Joe is the chairman of Catford Synagogue, the treasurer of SNB, the treasurer of Lewisham Interfaith Forum, the Trustee of Ravensbourne Project (children’s respite home in Lewisham), the Assistant Governor at London Rotary (member and treasurer of Lewisham and Penge Rotary Club).
Tayo Disu
Tayo has been in community policing engagement for two decades being a voice for many vulnerable and disenfranchised people in the community.
As a liaison between community safety managers and those deemed to be ‘hard to reach’, advocating for fair process to strengthen the community and improve community safety.
She has chaired the hate crime working group, the Lewisham Safer Neighbourhood Board and London communities policing partnership and is looking forward to support strengthening the police Ward Panels in Lewisham.
Cllr. Sophia Davies is one of the 3 councillors representing the Forest Hill ward. She is an elected councillor and served as Cabinet Member for Community Safety. Cllr. Davies has a wide range of experience working with government departments, police forces and senior officials in the criminal justice sector.
Chris Ellis
Chris had been an elected board member since 2022.
Chris Price
Chief Executive Officer
Chris joined Youth First in February 2024. He is passionate to see the end of poverty in the UK and has held leadership roles in social action and anti-poverty charities in south east London for over 30 years. His work has covered a range of issues including, food security, employability, women’s services, recycling, family support and HIV. Alongside working, he has spent 30 years as a volunteer youth worker and Scout leader.
Joel McEwan
Joel is a caseworker for Spark2Life an organisation commissioned by multiple London Boroughs to deliver high level mentoring. Spark2Life’s team work with complex, medium to high risk young people, known for/associated with serious youth violence, gangs and habitual weapons
carriers. This work is in partnership with the Youth Justice and Social Services, Probation as well as other services who make referral’s. Young people and young adults are supported with housing, education, training, and employment needs, as well having access to intensive and extensive
mentoring programmes ,tailored to suit the individual client.
LEWISHAM: Joel work as a detached street worker in Lewisham, as part of the ‘My Ends
Programme' funded by the VRU (Violence Reduction Unit) and offers a community led response
to violence affecting young people. The work incude therapeutic case work, where needed. Over
the next 2 years, the initiative will work alongside young people and communities in the
following locations: Pepys Estate/Evelyn; Turnham/Honor Oak Estate; Hatcham & Monson area
of New Cross
A detached approach will enable engagement with young people and young adults aged 13 – 25
from the three estates. The following support will be available:
Spark2Life will support young people in the following ways: A tertiary mentoring service;
Engaging in diversionary activities; Sign-posting and engaging with other services; Managing
personal risk; Having their voices heard in community forums
Royston John
A member of the SNB since its inception, Royston has over 20 years professional coaching and organisation development experience; with 20+ years Emotional Intelligence structured Equality, Diversity & Inclusion developmental work stimulating sustained organisational learning and personal developmental growth; supporting Board and Leadership Team development.
They have worked with the Mayor and Cabinet on increasing black staff in employment; Stop and Search committee; Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit; supporting organisations – Universities, Schools, LA, Health; specific Metropolitan Police activities include – Use of Force Steering Group; Community Facilitation and Multiple point entry review. Royston can be contacted at: info@ncbi.org.uk.
Sharon Kilborne
I have over 15 years’ experience working in the community in both statutory and voluntary capacity. I previously worked as a Community Engagement Coordinator in Croydon where I specialised in countering extremism and tackling hate crime. I have also had the privilege to set up and chair a Pan London hate crime forum where we would look at hate crime and how it was being addressed across London as well as providing support to statutory services who need to engage with local communities and have used these skills to support the first, in the UK, Black Restorative Justice Forum. This forum seeks to support the criminal justice system in seeking alternative approaches to tackling crime, in particular when dealing with marginalised communities who are disproportionality impacted by crime both a victims and perpetrators .
This led to me accepting the role of Trustee of the National Hate Crime Awareness charity 17-24-30 and I undertake this role effectively in tackling all forms of hate crime. The role also required me to build community resilience by setting up a number of networks including an interfaith group and a community safe space for women who were either survivors or at risk of harmful practices. I am currently a member of Lewisham’s Independent Advisory Group (IAG) and Police Encounter panel (PEP). I previously chaired the Pan- London hate crime forum, a community led group which worked with statutory partners such as the Met police, the local Council and Probation service in highlighting community tensions and identifying solutions to address them.
I have believe I can be an advocate for the community to ensure their voice is heard in particularly when addressing local issues. I have recently accepted the role of chair for Lewisham Hate Crime working group.
Counsellor Funmi Ademilua
Funmi is an accomplished Counsellor and Youth Mentor who offers a strong record of providing empathetic, objective support, advice, and guidance to adults / young people from all walks of life, who present various challenges and issues. In addition to strong counseling and support skills, she also bring strategic leadership experience from time spent as a School Governor. Funmi is analytical in her approach and a strong problem solver who enjoys working in a productive team and conducting research to support sector advancements. Focused on maximizing positive outcomes and ensuring individuals receive the support they need to thrive, she look forward to using her skills to assist children and young adults within a family-centered organization.
Ellie Spirrett – Self-Advocacy Coordinator
I am passionate about making our community a safer place for everyone. Our charity
supports people with learning disabilities to use their voice, and we hold events about
important topics chosen by our members. We often talk about street safety and hate
crime. I would like to make sure that what our members tell us about their experiences is
shared with the Safer Neighbourhoods Board and the police.
I am interested in increasing awareness of disability hate crime, making sure that
everyone knows what hate crime is and how to report it, and working with the police to
make it easier for people with learning disabilities to report hate crime. This is really
important, as disability hate crime is underreported. Lots of people don’t want to bother
reporting it because it happens so often to them. I think no one should see hate crime as
to be expected when they go out.
I work with lots of other community organisations, so I’m very proud of the Lewisham
community. I want to be involved to make sure that everyone feels safe when spending
time in the Lewisham community, and they can access all that Lewisham has to offer.
Ken Thomas
Who AM I
Hello everyone just introducing myself to you all. My name is Kenneth Thomas. I am a Lewisham Resident.
Current Role
I am the newly elected Chair for the Lewisham body worn video camera and stop and search. My motto is as a black man we are more astute to the real effects of Policing the black body and how this gets played out within the politics of display. Otherwise known as power and control. I currently have a team of 6 individuals. Anyone keen to learn more about this work feel free to contact us.
Lest we forget the prominent Lewisham campaigner who made this borough a “better, fairer place. Asquith Gibbes whose plaque stands proudly outside Lewisham BCU. I am honoured to be asked to fill his boots. Not only did Asquith advised the Home Office on racial inequality issues but also develop social structures for effective and engaging community policing.
Asquith was the principal lead equality advisor on race and racism to Lewisham. In short Asquith Gibbes, was the founder of our current stop and search group model including Lewisham Police independent Advisory Group.
Your Company
I currently work at Pepys Community Hub, Based in Deptford, London SE8 3BA. Where I am not only a board of trustees but also the centre manager. I first came to Deptford to run a project and eventually was asked to join the board.
Your Goals and Aspiration
I went to Goldsmith College where studied a BA in Sociology then went on to study a MA Urban Sociology. Currently developing a project involving Senegal/Deptford and Zanzibar the first of its kind.
4 most impressive achievements
- 2021 I won an award from the Naval Dockyard Society/ Lenox Project exploring the history of the Navy and the Slave Trade.
- 2022 became a Community Champion for challenging inequalities
- Later became a Board of trustees to the Lenox Project
- In 2023 I was called to be the board to Chair of Lewisham Stop and Search with MOPAC
- 2023 I was nominated twice for an unsung -heroes for my work in the community by Lewisham also
Quirky Facts
Nothing is impossible
Always set an example
Everyone deserve a chance to grow.