Applications are now open for the Testing for Impact Grant Round to learn about the effectiveness of different approaches to preventing young people becoming involved in crime and violence.
The Youth Endowment Fund exists to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.
In this grant round, they are specifically looking to fund programmes that are well-established and ready for an efficacy evaluation. This means that you will need to demonstrate that your project is able to reach and support a large enough group of children to undertake this type of evaluation.
Focus Areas
Family support
How do they best support families facing challenges to help them create a safe, loving environment at home?
Trusted adults
How can a trusted adult outside the family help keep a child safe from becoming involved in violence?
Diversion
How do they best support arrested children to prevent them becoming involved in violence?
Policing
How does policing best prevent violence – including through working with other organisations where the police are not the lead?
Neighbourhoods
How do they reduce crime and violence in specific neighbourhoods?
Therapies
How do they use therapy to keep children safe from becoming involved in violence?
Education
What should happen in schools, colleges and alternative provision to prevent children becoming involved in violence?
Positive activities
How do they use constructive activities, like sport, drama and employment, to prevent children becoming involved in violence?
What they’re looking to fund?
Diversion from prosecution through out of court disposals.
Building trusted adult relationships, outside of the family.
Positive activities, including structured sports, arts and music, outdoor and adventure activities.
Support to help families facing challenges and help them create a safe, loving environment at home.
Interventions
Knife education programmes
Programmes that aim to prevent knife crime by educating children about the risks and harms caused by carrying a knife.
Social skills training
Programmes that aim to develop children’s ability to regulate their behaviour and communicate effectively.
Relationship violence prevention
Programmes that aim to prevent violence in intimate relationship.
Bystander interventions to prevent sexual assault
Programmes that help young people to identify and intervene in potential sexual assaults.
Duration of Project: In this round, they expect the maximum project delivery time to be 24 months and are keen to hear from projects that can deliver within a shorter period.
Who they’re looking to support?
In this grant round, who they are looking to support depends on the type of project or intervention.
Programmes which are universal provision aimed at the general population of young people to prevent the escalation of risk and likelihood of violence are commonly referred to as primary prevention.
Programmes aimed at young people who are at risk of involvement in youth offending are commonly referred to as secondary prevention.
Programmes aimed at young people who have already been affected by violence, offending and/or exploitation are commonly referred to as tertiary prevention.
Eligibility Requirement
Location: your project must be delivered in England and/or Wales.
Your organisation: your organisation must be a registered charity, company, statutory body or CIC.
Activities: projects must fit within one of the YEF focus areas or interventions described in this guidance.
Children and young people: projects must be supporting children and young people.
Outcomes: they’re primarily interested in projects that are focussed on reducing offending outcomes.
Scale: to support a robust and meaningful evaluation, they require projects to be able to reach a certain number of children and young people during the project lifetime.
Willingness to engage in an independent evaluation: YEF exists to better understand what works to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.
Readiness for evaluation: they are looking for projects which are ready to be evaluated via an Efficacy study.
Track record: they require projects to have a track record supporting children and young people and delivering their intervention. They will fund projects looking to scale, expand or explore different modes of delivery, as long as they can demonstrate the expertise and experience to facilitate this.
