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

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.
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.

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
Youth Justice
Children’s Services
Policing
Health
Youth
Neighbourhoods
Our latest research reports
Find out what works through evaluation and guidance reports
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Guidance
Report:Focused deterrence guidance
This report offers practical guidance to help organisations deliver effective and equitable focused deterrence (FD) in England and Wales. This guidance is aimed at the delivery of FD programmes to reduce serious violence that involves children and young people. It also acknowledges the role of influential older associates, including adults, who may be contributing to…Policing -
Report
Report:Racial Disproportionality
The current state of disproportionality Violence has devastating impacts on children and families. While children from all backgrounds can face violence, children from certain ethnic backgrounds are less safe. The majority of children in the youth justice system, and involved in violence, are White. However, relative to their share of the population, some minority ethnic…Policing Youth Justice Education Health -
Statistics briefing
Report:Statistics update (January 2025): Trends in violence affecting children
This is an update to the statistics published in our Beyond the Headlines report. This update includes latest data on core indicators for knife crime, policing, health, children’s services and the youth sector in England and Wales. Core Indicators Dashboard For more details, see the full briefing or our core indicators dashboard.Children’s Services Education Health Neighbourhoods Policing Youth Justice Youth Sector
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.


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

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

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.

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.
Latest from YEF
What’s new at YEF
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Blog
Blog:Evaluating Violence Prevention: Key Insights for School Leaders
The impact of violence on young people Violence and the fear of violence has both physical and emotional impacts on children and young people, perhaps more acutely than many of us realise. 67% of teenage children are concerned about becoming victims of violence and 22% say that the anxiety has taken a toll on their… -
Blog
Blog:Safe Episode 1 Launch
On Adolescence Over the weekend, without taking a break, I watched all four episodes of Adolescence, Stephen Graham’s Netflix mini-series about the arrest of a 13-year-old schoolboy for murdering one of his classmates and its impact on his life, family and community. I was gripped, partially because it is a rare thing for British television… -
News
News:New YEF Guidance helps police and VRUs tackle serious violence with Focused Deterrence
First pioneered on the streets of Boston in the 1990s to address rising gun crime, Focused Deterrence has since been adopted around the world as an effective strategy to reduce serious violence. Today, the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has published new guidance to help police forces, Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) and statutory services implement Focused…
Newsletter
Sign up to receive the latest YEF news, opportunities and research.
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.