The organisation was founded in November 2008 by three Scottish
Surgeons: Christine Goodall, Mark Devlin and David Koppel along with
Karyn McCluskey from the Scottish
Violence Reduction Unit (VRU). Their stated aims are the prevention of serious injury and death, particularly among the young people of Scotland, and to change attitudes to
violence in Scotland through education and awareness raising. They had start up funding of £80,000 from the
Scottish Government. MAV is a participant in the
World Health Organization's Violence Prevention Alliance. They became a charity registered with the
Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator in December 2009 (SC041153).
School visits By June 2009, the first phase of MAV's schools project had trained 55 volunteers. MAV concentrated on schools in areas of urban deprivation or those with high levels of youth violence. There was a particular focus on issues around
knife crime and
gang membership. As of 2011 MAV had spoken to over 5000 young people in schools in the west of
Scotland.
Other professionals A joint initiative launched in 2010 with the VRU saw MAV train dentists to spot victims of
domestic violence and signpost them towards help. MAV also take part in the VRU project the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) and in the Scottish Government's project No Knives Better Lives. They planned to pilot workshops for hairdressers at
Ayrshire College in 2015. By September 2015, around 2,000 people had received training, including some hairdressers and members of the fire and rescue service as well as dentists, doctors and vets. At that point the Scottish Government announced £115,000 had been awarded to extend the
Ask, Validate, Document and Refer (AVDR) programme to make it available to more professionals across Scotland. ==Awards==