How did we make the Which Children resource?
What data did we use?
The Which Children resource uses data from the YEF Children, Violence and Vulnerability (CVV) 2025 survey. CVV 2025 is a nationally representative youth voice survey of nearly 11,000 13-17-year-olds in England and Wales. It asks children about their experiences of violence. To ensure representativeness, the survey used quotas based on Census 2021 data for age, gender, ethnicity, region and socio-economic grade. The definitions used in the resource for each of the needs and for serious violence are based on the questions in the CVV survey. For example, children are identified as having the need ‘depression or mood disorder’, if they reported that they think they have depression or another mood disorder (including bipolar disorder) and that this had been diagnosed by a professional (e.g. a doctor, therapist or psychologist). ‘Serious violence’ is defined as violence resulting in the victim requiring medical treatment at a hospital, or from a doctor or other medical professional, in the last 12 months. You can learn more about the CVV 2025 survey methods in the technical report and review the accompanying data tables.
How did we choose which needs to include?
The CVV survey asked children more than 150 questions across nine themes, with respondents selecting from a set of answer options. From these questions, we selected 28 needs to include in the Which Children resource. We selected a limited number of needs to keep the resource manageable. We based our selection on needs that are most likely to be relevant and useful for local leaders, commissioners and decision-makers working to prevent youth violence.
See the CVV data tables and reports for information on a wider set of needs and outcomes, including variation by demographic characteristics.
- Report
Report:Children, Violence and Vulnerability 2025
This is YEF’s fourth annual Children, violence and vulnerability report. This year, YEF surveyed nearly 11,000 teenage children aged 13-17 in England and Wales about their experiences of violence.
How did we test the resource with prospective users and experts?
We tested the resource with prospective users in November 2025 and May 2026. This included local and national commissioners and decision-makers, members of YEF’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB), research experts and a YEF Race Equity Associate. Users represented a diverse range of characteristics and lived experiences. A third of users were from minority ethnic groups, and all YAB members who engaged in testing were from minority ethnic groups. Users provided rich feedback on the resource and its framing. Testing was carried out through structured feedback calls. We tested the design and usability of the resource, the language used in the resource, and the explanatory guidance provided alongside the data. Feedback from these sessions was used to refine the resource before publication.
What are the limitations of our approach?
There are a number of limitations that you should consider when reading the data.
- The data is based on self-report survey responses. The CVV survey captures what children reported about their own experiences of violence. This is valuable because it gives direct insight into children’s perspectives, including experiences that may not appear in administrative data. However, self-report data also has limitations. Children may interpret questions differently; some needs and vulnerabilities, like relationship violence, may be under-reported; and findings for others, like school exclusion, may differ from administrative records.
- Some of the needs were measured using different timescales. For example, children were asked whether they had been in a ‘gang’ in the last 12 months. However, they were not given a timescale for whether they had mental health conditions like depression. This means some needs may appear higher or lower in the resource than they would if all measures covered the same time period.
- Serious violence is a relatively rare outcome and some estimates are less precise than others. The figures in the resource show estimates for all children, based on the sample of children who took part in the survey. Although the CVV is a large survey, only a small number of respondents reported both experiencing serious violence and having some of the needs included in the resource. We only report findings where at least 50 children responded, but estimates based on small numbers still have greater uncertainty and are more likely to change from one survey to the next. The data is therefore best used to identify broad patterns rather than as precise estimates of vulnerability for any specific group. To reflect the degree of uncertainty across estimates, we’ve included error margins. These show the range we expect the true values to fall within, based on the sampling uncertainty. Narrower margins indicate more precise estimates.
- The resource does not cover every factor that may shape children’s exposure to violence. We selected needs included in the resource from the measures available in the CVV survey so some needs will be missing. In particular, as a self-report survey, the CVV captures limited information on broader environmental, institutional, and structural factors, such as poverty, racism, access to services, or wider inequalities. You can review the whole list of available factors in the CVV data tables.
- The resource looks at each need separately. Many children experience multiple, overlapping needs and vulnerabilities. The data in this resource shows each need separately and does not show how combinations of needs may affect children’s experiences of violence. For example, school experiences, demographic characteristics such as gender and race, and family experiences may interact to compound children’s vulnerability to violence.