Youth work and violence prevention
Details
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has published new practice guidance setting out eight evidence-based recommendations for preventing children and young people aged 10-17 from becoming involved in violence. The guidance is primarily directed at local funders and commissioners of youth work in England and Wales, including local authorities, Violence Reduction Units, and housing associations, though it is also relevant to philanthropic funders and youth workers. This update summarises the key recommendations and their practical implications for lawyers and youth justice teams.
Details The guidance responds to significant funding cuts to the youth sector over the last fifteen years, which have weakened youth work infrastructure and left many commissioners with limited resources. The guidance positions youth services as a statutory duty rather than discretionary spending.
The YEF sets out eight evidence-based recommendations. Commissioners should target support where violence risk is highest, using administrative data to identify vulnerable children and young people - including those who have been excluded from school, attend Alternative Provision, are severely absent from education, are looked after, or have received criminal convictions - as well as high-risk contexts such as hotspot locations where violence is concentrated. This targeted approach should be complemented by closing urgent gaps in youth club access, particularly in "youth club deserts" (urban areas without a club within a 40-minute walk), and by offering vulnerable young people at least six months of weekly, one-to-one mentoring by safe, trained adults.
The guidance also recommends funding structured positive activities, including organised sports programmes with direct evidence of reducing offending, scheduled at key risk times (particularly 4-8pm on weekdays after school), alongside embedding A&E navigator services in high-need hospitals - notably, over a third of emergency departments with the highest violent crime rates currently lack such services.
To support effective delivery, multi-year core funding lasting 3-5 years should become the default, enabling providers to retain staff and build infrastructure; currently, one in three youth work providers has less than six months of funding in reserve.
Youth workers should receive regular, high-quality supervision and specialist safeguarding training covering violence, child criminal exploitation, and emerging issues such as the role of social media. Finally, commissioners should prioritise evidence-based strategies and avoid harmful approaches such as boot camps and prison awareness programmes.
The guidance also addresses racial disproportionality, noting that whilst most children involved in violence are White, Black children and young people are over-represented relative to their population share, driven by factors such as poverty, racism, and unequal access to support. Encouragingly, youth work is particularly effective at engaging children and young people from disproportionately impacted communities, with those from Black and mixed backgrounds more likely to attend youth clubs and to have a trusting relationship with a mentor than those from White backgrounds. Five of the eight recommendations are expected to help tackle this disproportionality. The guidance also emphasises that youth services should sensitively collect demographic information and monitor how take-up varies by group to address any inequities.
Commentary
For practitioners working with children in the youth justice system, the guidance offers a clear message: well-funded, relationship-based youth work is not a "nice to have" but an essential component of any serious strategy to keep children safe.
The finding that children who report committing violence are almost twice as likely to attend a youth club as their peers (65% vs 35%) underscores the unique reach of youth services in engaging those most at risk. Practitioners should use this evidence to advocate for the involvement of youth workers in multi-agency assessments and safeguarding meetings, where their insights and relationships with children can inform more effective, child-centred interventions, particularly given that one in eight local authorities report that youth workers' involvement in safeguarding systems is rare or non-existent.
From a children's rights perspective, the guidance's emphasis on involving children and young people in service design aligns with Article 12 of the UNCRC and should be welcomed.
Lawyers representing children should be alert to local authorities’ duties under section 507B of the Education Act 1996 to secure sufficient youth provision. Where services have been reduced or removed, criminal lawyers may wish to consider referring families to community care or public law solicitors to explore whether the lack of provision can be challenged.
The guidance's explicit warning against harmful approaches such as boot camps and "scared straight" programmes is also significant; practitioners should robustly challenge any proposals to subject child clients to such interventions, citing the evidence of harm. Ultimately, this guidance reinforces what many working in youth justice have long argued: investing in relationships, communities, and early support is far more effective than punitive responses. Practitioners should use it to advocate for better services, and ensure that children's rights remain at the heart of violence prevention strategies.