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We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.

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WHAT WORKS
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REPORTSNew: Beyond the Headlines

We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.

We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.

What we do

FIND OUT WHAT WORKS

Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit

We’ve developed the YEF Toolkit as a free online resource to help you put evidence of what works to prevent serious violence into action.

Find out what works for your area of work, and how we can collaboratively help make a positive change to the lives of young people at risk of violence.

Go to the toolkit

Sectors

To help us make the biggest difference over the ten years of our endowment, we’ve selected ​seven sectors​ where we’ll use evidence to identify what works and what needs to change, so that children are better supported and violence reduces.

For each sector we’ll produce practice and systems guidance, alongside online and in-person events to join.

Education

Whether you work in school, college or Alternative Provision setting, or help to oversee and set policy for the education system, our job is to make it easy to know what works and to help you to make it happen.

Youth Justice

We are looking to improve support for young people who have been arrested, but not charged.

Children’s Services

How do we best support families facing challenges to help them create a safe, loving environment at home?

Policing

How does policing best prevent violence – including through working with other organisations where the police are not the lead?

Health

How do we use therapy to keep children save from becoming involved in violence?

Youth

How can a trusted adult outside the family help keep a child safe, and what positive activities can support young people from becoming involved in violence?

Neighbourhoods

How do we best support the neighbourhoods sector to support children at risk of violence outside the home?

Our latest research reports

Find out what works through evaluation and guidance reports

  • Statistics briefing

    Report:Beyond the Headlines 2025

    About the report Every year, thousands of children are affected by violence. But is the situation improving – or getting worse? And how well are the systems that support children responding?  To help answer these questions, we have created a core indicators dashboard, tracking 11 key measures. It’s designed to cut through complexity and offer…
  • Research

    Report:Understanding referral pathways and diversionary support for children within the criminal justice system in England and Wales

    What did the research involve?  Every year, thousands of children in England and Wales come into contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) – often for the first time. These children are some of the most vulnerable in society, which is why these interactions with the CJS should be treated as both a safeguarding and…
    Youth Justice
  • Guidance

    Report:Education Policy, Children and Violence

    Our Education Policy, Children and Violence guidance, provides education policymakers across England and Wales with eight recommendations on how to prevent children’s involvement in violence. Recommendations All the recommendations propose changes to the education system in both England and Wales, except for Recommendation 3. This recommendation applies only to England, as it addresses Ofsted’s recently…

Funded projects

We fund work in England and Wales that aims to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence – especially those aged between 10 and 14-years old.

Every programme and activity we fund, we’ll evaluate. We do this because we want to learn what works, for whom and why.

Learn more about
our funding
Current funding round:
Open Call
Three young women smiling

Funding good work

We fund work in England and Wales that aims to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence.

Find out more

Finding what works

We evaluate every programme and activity that we fund. Our aim is to find out what works, for whom and why.

Find out more

Working for change

To make a lasting difference we’ll build a movement of people and organisations passionate about making sure that young people get the very best support possible.

Find out more

Youth Advisory Board

We’re giving young people a stake in our decision making and a voice on the issues that matter to them.

We can only achieve by putting young people at the heart of our work. That’s why we’ve set-up a Youth Advisory Board.

Learn more about the Youth Advisory Board

Latest from YEF

What’s new at YEF

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Newsletter

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Be the first to hear about:

  • New Toolkit strands
  • New guidance reports
  • New funding rounds
  • New research: one of the largest studies of children’s experiences of violence.

YEF Newsletter

© 2025 The Youth Endowment Fund Charitable Trust. Registered Charity Number: 1185413.