A taskforce has been set up to tackle youth violence and reduce the number of young people in Ealing getting involved in violent crime.

Last year there were 176 serious offences committed by young people in Ealing and more than 5,000 incidents of serious youth violence across London.

The aim of the taskforce is to make sure that the council, police, health, probation and all other organisations that deal with young people work together to tackle the issues which lead to teenagers getting involved in violence or becoming a victim.

Indicators that a young person is more likely to become involved in serious youth violence can be such as living with domestic violence, being excluded from school and suffering from mental health problems.

The work of the taskforce will include making sure that young people with one or more of these early signs are given extra support to help keep them away from trouble.

Some of the work already underway in the borough includes providing parenting programmes to help mums and dads whose children might be heading towards crime, targeted youth work and activities for young people to chanel their energies into.

There is also work in schools and youth clubs across the borough to encourage children of all ages to stay away from trouble. Motivation speaker and former gangster rapper Mutah Beale visited children in schools to warn about the dangers of gangs, earlier in the year.

The taskforce, composed of members from all the partner organisations, will be responsible for delivering the borough's first ever Serious Youth Violence Strategy.

Ealing council's chief executive, Darra Singh, chairs the London Serious Youth Violence Board, which wants every borough to have a strategy for preventing and reducing violent crime committed by or against people under 20.

Cabinet Member for Safer Communities, Councillor Vlod Barchuk, said: "Serious youth violence is an issue across the country and it's vital that all councils act now to ensure they are working with their partners to tackle the root causes. It's important that we stop young people from becoming drawn into violence and Ealing is leading the way in much of this work."

Superintendent Ian Jenkins of Ealing police will jointly chair the taskforce with the council's director of children and families, Judith Finlay.

Superintendent Jenkins said: "Our work in Ealing to tackle serious youth violence is already very well advanced and this strategy will help to cement that work and make our efforts even more effective."