Scope and Remit

What is outside the scope of Objective 2? 

The following are generally outside the scope of this funding round: 

• Interventions addressing harm after it has escalated to the point of requiring statutory involvement from children’s social care, the police, or criminal justice system – this is tertiary prevention and out of scope 
• Universal, whole-class or whole-year group delivery with no targeting for risk or emerging concern – this is primary prevention and falls under the separate Objective 1 funding round 
• Proposals to develop an entirely new intervention from scratch, with no prior delivery in any setting or cohort 
• Programmes delivered primarily in community settings with only limited links to the education settings 
• Programmes not clearly linked to children and young people aged 10-18 in an educational setting. 

How is Objective 2 different from Objective 1? 

Objective 1 funds universal (primary prevention) delivery of healthy and respectful relationships education to whole classes or year groups in secondary schools, for pupils aged 11-16. Objective 2 funds targeted (secondary prevention) work with children and young people aged 10-18 who are already showing early signs of inappropriate or problematic attitudes or behaviours around gender and relationships. If your programme is universal and not targeted at pupils showing emerging concerns, it is likely to be a better fit for Objective 1. The deadline for Objective 1 applications is 9am, Monday 27th July 2026. Please see here. 

Why does Objective 2 focus on ages 10-18, while Objective 1 focuses on ages 11-16? 

Objective 1 follows the statutory RSHE curriculum, which applies to all secondary school pupils aged 11-16 (Key Stages 3-4). 

Objective 2 is different because it focuses on targeted early intervention, rather than curriculum delivery. It therefore includes young people aged 10-18, recognising that: 

• Some children may begin displaying inappropriate or problematic attitudes and behaviours around gender and relationships before they reach secondary school, which makes earlier intervention appropriate. 
• Harmful attitudes and behaviours around gender and relationships can continue beyond age 16. 
• Many young people remain in education through sixth forms and Further Education colleges. 
• Some pupils in specialist SEND schools remain in education until age 19. 

Isn’t harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) already the established, well-defined category? Why widen the scope? 

HSB is defined as sexual behaviour by under-18s that is developmentally inappropriate and may be harmful towards self or others or abusive towards another child, young person or adult. Teenage relationship abuse, coercive control, and “everyday” sexist/misogynistic behaviour is not captured within this definition HSB but can cause harm, and may escalate towards more severe forms of harm if unaddressed. 

How big is the gap, in practice? 

Substantial. Youth Endowment Fund research based on a survey of nearly 11,000 young people aged 13-17 found that 15% of those in a relationship in the past year experienced physical or sexual abuse. A further 36% reported emotionally abusive or controlling behaviour, including a partner checking their phone or monitoring their location. Most of that – monitoring, controlling, coercive behaviour – is not HSB. It’s relationship abuse, and it’s currently far less likely to trigger a structured school response.  

Is this funding round looking for interventions that work with victims and survivors of harm? 

Not primarily, though interventions may contain elements that work with victim-survivors of harm within educational settings. Objective 2 focuses on children and young people displaying inappropriate or problematic attitudes or behaviours. However, proposals should show how they will: 

• Consider the needs of victim-survivors; 
• Minimise the risk of causing further harm; and 
• Deliver the intervention in a trauma-informed and safeguarding-led way. 

You do not need to deliver a separate victim-survivor intervention. 

Does delivery have to take place on school premises? 

Not exclusively. Projects should be delivered primarily through educational settings, but some activities can take place in community or partner settings where there is a strong link with a school or college. Programmesdelivered mainly in community settings with only limited links to education are unlikely to be eligible. 

Does my intervention need to include both a wider school capacity-building element and targeted support for pupils displaying emerging behaviours? 

Targeted support for pupils is the primary focus, and your proposal should centre on this. However, proposals are also expected to show how the intervention will strengthen the capacity of the school or college more broadly – specifically, how it will build staff confidence, improve referral and support pathways, and leave educational settings better equipped to identify and respond to emerging issues around gender norms and relationships beyond the funded delivery period. This does not need to be a separate or equal strand of work, but it should be a clear and considered part of your proposal. Interventions that focus exclusively on targeted pupil support with no regard for the wider school context are unlikely to meet our expectations. 

Can my intervention address harmful behaviours beyond those related to gender norms and relationships? 

Objective 2 is specifically for interventions that address inappropriate or problematic attitudes and behaviours around gender norms and relationships. If your programme also covers other issues, such as gang violence, substance misuse or antisocial behaviour etc, you must show that the gender and relationships component is a clear and central part of the intervention. 

We know that attitudes related to misogyny are often a factor in radicalisation, particularly for non-ideologically affiliated violence-fixated individuals. We would welcome proposals for these programmes where the core of the intervention centres on attitudes and behaviours around gender norms and relationships. 

My intervention works with young people who have been referred by the police but the case was not taken forward – are they eligible? 

Yes. The intervention must focus on behaviours that have not reached a threshold for statutory intervention, but cases which have been referred to statutory agencies and not taken forward remain eligible. A young person who has been referred to the police but where no further action was taken can therefore be included in your cohort. What matters is that the intervention is not dealing with cases requiring ongoing statutory, criminal, or clinical involvement – not that participants have never come into contact with statutory services. 

What timeline should I plan for if my application is successful? 

The overall timeline will depend on the length of the co-design period and the evaluation design agreed with YEF and the appointed evaluator. Applicants should plan for a minimum 4 month co-design period, although this may be extended where further intervention development or testing is needed. The duration of set-up, delivery and evaluation will also vary depending on whether the project progresses as a feasibility study or a pilot RCT.Please refer to the timelines section of the guidance for more information, including indicative project schedules for different co-design and evaluation scenarios. 

Can funded delivery take place across the UK? 

For this Objective, we are only able to fund the delivery and evaluation of interventions that take place in England. 

Eligibility and intervention readiness 

Can I apply if my intervention works with parents or caregivers alongside pupils? 

Yes, provided the intervention’s primary focus remains on children and young people aged 10-18 in an educational setting. The guidance encourages proposals that address multiple levels of the socio-ecological model, which may include the family context – particularly where children and young people are exposed to harmful gender norms or behaviours at home. We are hoping to fund a variety of delivery model. 

How long does the intervention need to run? 

There is no minimum duration. However, we are not looking for one-off workshops. Interventions should run over multiple sessions and provide enough time to achieve meaningful change. 

Does my intervention need to be manualised? 

Not necessarily at the point of application, but the level of manualisation expected will depend on the evaluation design you are proposing. For a pilot RCT, a highly developed, stable and well manualised intervention model is required. For feasibility studies, some flexibility is acceptable – we recognise that interventions at earlier stages of development may still be refining their model. However, at minimum, all proposals should be able to describe their core components clearly. 

What does a Theory of Change need to look like at this stage? 

It does not need to be finalised at the application stage. At a minimum, your proposal should explain: 

• The problem your intervention addresses; 
• The main activities; 
• How these activities are expected to lead to change; and 
• The outcomes you expect to achieve. 

It can be refined during the co-design period with the appointed evaluator and YEF. 

Can organisations apply in partnership? 

Yes, partnerships between organisations are welcomed. Partnership applications should identify a lead organisation that will act as YEF’s primary grantee and main point of contact, and should clearly set out the role and value each partner brings to the project. Where partnerships are formed to share the scale of delivery, there should be a clearly defined and consistent intervention model that all partners deliver to. 

Are programmes that have previously received YEF funding eligible to apply? 

Yes. If you have an ongoing project with YEF, we will seek to understand your organisation’s capacity to take on this new project as part of our assessment of your proposal. 

Is this funding round only for interventions that work with boys? 

No. Interventions may support children and young people of all genders. However, because VAWG-related harms are more commonly perpetrated by boys and young men, proposals may focus primarily on boys where this is appropriate to the intervention model and target cohort. Applicants should ensure their approach remains inclusive, proportionate and sensitive to the different ways that risk, need and behaviour may present across genders. 

Can I suggest an international intervention for YEF to adapt, rather than applying directly? 

Yes. Alongside this funding call, YEF is separately exploring international evidence-based interventions that could be adapted for delivery in England, working through a commissioned delivery partner and evaluator. If you would like to suggest an international intervention for consideration, you can email a brief overview to the YEF Grants inbox (grants@youthendowmentfund.org.uk) and a member of the team will follow up. Suggesting an intervention does not guarantee your organisation would be selected as the delivery partner if YEF decides to take it forward. If an international intervention has already been adapted for delivery in England and the license has been approved for use by the developer, you should apply to this Objective 2 funding call in the usual way. 

Evaluation

Can I name a preferred evaluator in my application? 

Yes. YEF’s standard approach is to assess delivery and evaluator applications independently, but where you have a preferred evaluator from YEF’s Evaluator Panel, you can name them in the ‘partnerships’ section of your application. The evaluator must separately apply through YEF’s forthcoming Call for Proposals and set out how they would design and deliver an evaluation tailored to your intervention. Applications are assessed separately, and naming a preferred evaluator does not guarantee they will be appointed – YEF retains full discretion to appoint an alternative evaluator from its panel. 

How will YEF decide which evaluation type is right for my intervention? 

You should propose the evaluation design you think best fits your intervention. The final decision will be made during co-design with the appointed evaluator, taking into account: 

• The maturity of the intervention; 
• The existing evidence base; 
• Whether delivery is feasible at the required scale; and 
• Which evaluation will produce the strongest evidence. 

The guidance sets out the characteristics of interventions likely to be suited to each design – feasibility study or pilot RCT – and applicants should use this to inform their proposal. 

Can I use outcome measures I have already been collecting, or will the evaluator introduce new ones? 

The outcome measures used in the evaluation will be agreed during co-design with the appointed evaluator. YEF is currently reviewing appropriate outcome measures for this objective across behaviour change, attitudes, gender norms, and peer norms, and anticipates proposing a core outcome set during co-design. Measures you have already been collecting may be considered, particularly where they are validated and relevant to the outcomes being targeted, but the evaluation will not incorporate measures developed by delivery partners. The final set of measures will be determined collaboratively to ensure they are appropriate for the evaluation design and the cohort. 

What does a feasibility or pilot study look at, if it doesn’t test impact? 

Feasibility and pilot studies help build the evidence needed to support future impact evaluations. They may explore whether the intervention can be implemented as intended, whether participants can be successfully identified, recruited and retained, levels of participant engagement and acceptability, the practicality of collecting outcome and implementation data, and the feasibility of future evaluation designs, including whether randomisation would be acceptable. These studies are not designed to determine whether the intervention ‘works’; their aim is to build a stronger pipeline of promising interventions that can progress to more rigorous impact evaluation in future. 

How will YEF decide what scale of delivery is required? 

The likely scale requirement depends on the evaluation design that best suits your intervention’s stage of development:

• Feasibility study: approximately 50 children and young people across several sites
• Pilot RCT: approximately 75-100 children and young people, plus an equal randomly-assigned comparison group

Applicants are invited to propose the evaluation design and delivery scale they believe best fits their intervention, but the final design, sample size and scale will be agreed collaboratively with the appointed evaluator during co-design.

Data

What will happen to my personal data as an Applicant?  

We will store and use this information to contact you about your application. Further information on how we process your personal data in relation to your application can be found on our website Privacy Policy   

I’m thinking about applying for a grant. How will you help me to make sure I’m collecting the right data and it’s safely stored?  

All projects we fund will be paired with an independent evaluator whose data security arrangements have already been assessed by YEF. It will be your evaluator’s responsibility to make sure the right data is collected and securely stored as part of the evaluation. Successful applicants will need to work with their evaluators to make sure they can collect the right data on the children who take part in their projects. All evalautions under YEF will require evaluators to receive ethical approval from a relevant research ethics committee, and this will include the data arrangements for the evaluation data.  

Will participant data be stored beyond the trial timelines? 

At the end of all YEF evaluations (except from feasibility studies), pseudonymised data from the evaluation is transferred into YEF’s data archive for longer-term research. You can read our guidance on the YEF data archive here. 

Delivery setting and participant recruitment 

How will children and young people be identified for this kind of targeted intervention? 

Children and young people may be identified through existing processes in educational settings or through referral pathways linked to schools, colleges or other eligible delivery settings. 

Identification should be based on emerging concerns, contextual risk factors or professional judgement, rather than requiring a formal diagnosis, criminal justice involvement or statutory intervention. Applicants should clearly explain how participants will be identified and why their approach is appropriate and equitable for the intervention. 

Do I need to have delivery settings confirmed before I can apply? 

No. You do not need to have schools, colleges or community delivery settings formally confirmed at the application stage. Instead, we want to understand your organisation’s ability to recruit and engage suitable settings, including your relevant experience, existing partnerships, and plans for recruitment. If your application is shortlisted, we expect some scoping work of delivery settings to take place during the co-design phase to gauge interest and buy-in. With the more formal recruitment taking place once appointed. Where randomisation is proposed, settings should be recruited to take part in the evaluation rather than being guaranteed delivery of the intervention. 

Can we recruit settings we have worked with before? 

This depends on the evaluation design. 

• For feasibility studies, which focus on testing whether the intervention can be delivered as intended rather than measuring impact, there is more flexibility around recruiting delivery settings you have worked with before. 
• For pilot RCTs, prior exposure to the intervention is more problematic. Because these evaluations compare outcomes between an intervention and a control group, settings or participants that have previously received the intervention (or related training) may affect the reliability of the findings. For these designs, we would generally expect projects to recruit settings and participants that have not previously taken part in the intervention. 

We recognise that many organisations have established relationships with schools, colleges and community settings. Existing relationships are not a problem in themselves. Where a setting has had previous contact with your organisation but has not delivered or participated in the intervention within an agreed period, it may still be eligible. Final decisions on recruitment and eligibility will be made during co-design with YEF and the appointed evaluator. 

Budgets 

Is there a maximum funding amount that organisations can apply for?  

No, we have not set a maximum funding cap for this funding round. Applicants should be upfront regarding the funding required to deliver their project within the scope of an evaluation. YEF will, however, assess whether proposed budgets are proportionate to the scale and scope of delivery and whether they represent good value for money.    

If your application is shortlisted, there will be a further opportunity to review and refine the budget during the co-design phase with the independent evaluator and YEF. This is because some aspects of the project may change once the final delivery and evaluation design is agreed, such as:  

• The evaluation design and associated requirements  
• The scale of delivery required for the evaluation (i.e., the number of settings, participants or delivery cycles required etc)  
• Implementation and staffing requirements  
• The proposed programme delivery timeline and duration; and  
• Roles and responsibilities relating to the evaluation, including activities such as data collection, coordination, or project management.  

This process is intended to ensure that project budgets are feasible, proportionate, and aligned with the final agreed delivery and evaluation model.  

  What costs will you cover?  

The fund can cover both staff costs and non-staff delivery costs directly related to the programme.  This may include, for example:  

• Programme delivery staff;  
• Training and facilitation costs;  
• Materials and resources;  
• Travel;  
• Venue costs;  
• Programme management;  
• Translation and interpreter costs;  
• Safeguarding and supervision support; and  
• Reasonable organisational overheads. 

All costs must be directly linked to the proposed delivery of the programme and participation in the evaluation.  

Do I need to justify all costs?  

Please provide a brief justification next to all budget lines to support our assessment. We will assess whether proposed costs are reasonable, represent value for money and are proportionate to the scale and delivery of the programme.  

Will you cover overheads costs?  

Yes. Reasonable organisational overhead costs can be included within the budget. We would not expect these to be more than 20% of the total budget and we would require explanation of what these overhead costs involve and how they are calculated.   

Should I include VAT in my budget?  

YEF funding is through grants. This means that organisations should not be charging VAT on their own costs of the delivery of the intervention (such as staff salaries, use of organisational assets, etc.) as part of their budget request to YEF. However, where organisations need to purchase services or equipment from third party suppliers to deliver the intervention (such as the purchase of laptops or hiring of venues) and these suppliers charge VAT on these purchases, these VAT costs are eligible to be included in your budget.