ACT NOW - ALL COMMUNITITES TOGETHER
Duration: 2-3 hours with 15-30 participants per session
Suitable for: Young people aged 15-22 years
The ACT NOW session is given by the CLO and PC Claire Boyd (Counter Terrorism Liaison
Officer – Ayrshire) and is designed to allow debate around the sensitive issue of extremism within
communities. As such it is an enabler for community participants to air grievances, debate matters
of interest to them and work through a group problem solving experience. ACT NOW is an exercise
that operates in a safe community space where participants feel they have the confidence to discuss
the issues in a location where they have an affinity and a sense of community.
A further key question which may be in the back of your mind is why get involved in ACT NOW
or any other PREVENT initiative at all? Will ACT NOW be greeted positively by communities from
diverse backgrounds or from schools, colleges or faith centres? ACT NOW has developed in
response to the PREVENT strand of national counter terrorism strategy CONTEST and concentrates
on supporting five crucial areas.
Learning Outcomes
• Undermining extremist ideology; support mainstream voices
• The ideology sustaining violent extremism is discredited and alternative narrative