Charitable Trust announces £200m investment to tackle youth violence

The Youth Endowment Fund has launched a 10 year strategy to develop projects aimed at reducing violent crime amongst young people.

The charity is now calling on children’s professionals to help shape priorities for the first phase of programme and how the Home Office funding will be used. It will also consult with young people and children who have experience of being involved in violence.

The YEF has already indicated that they will be looking to focus their funding on the following two areas:-

Shut out at school: This theme would ask which approaches work best to prevent school absences and exclusion from mainstream school, which are linked to involvement in violence later in a child’s life.
Diverting from the criminal justice system: This theme would ask which approaches work best to support those children and young people who are already involved in crime or who are most at risk. They could involve individual, family or community support at critical points in a child’s life; for example, after they’ve been arrested or admitted into A&E following a violent assault.

But they are keen to hear views and ideas of others with a pledge to listen to what is being said and to go in a different direction if these themes are not right.