Youth Sector
How can a trusted adult outside the family help keep a child safe, and what positive activities can support young people from becoming involved in violence?
Youth Work and Violence Prevention Guidance
Practice guidance for youth work commissioners on how to reduce children and young people’s involvement in violence.
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Children need the help and support of trusted adults like youth workers and sports coaches in their community.
The Youth Endowment Fund has a mission, which is to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence. We plan to work closely with seven sectors (Youth sector, Policing, Youth Justice, Children’s Services, Neighbourhoods, Health and Education) that make up a crucial part of the wider system that supports children. As we grow our knowledge and understanding of the evidence, working with you will be key to keeping children safe and giving them a brighter future.
The youth sector includes a vast number of stakeholders like you who commission youth provision, fund youth provision or deliver programmes and activities to reach children. That’s why we’re focusing our work on two priority areas: ‘trusted adults’ and ‘positive activities’.
Why are we focusing on trusted adults for youth crime prevention?
- Children who tend to be vulnerable often escalate through statutory thresholds and are likely not detected by services. This leads to greater harms as they accelerate whilst not having any support in place. These children can access a trusted adult who can begin to give them the support they need.
- Lives are being cut short. Typically, this is supported through serious case reviews as statutory systems are working under resource pressures. Youth workers as trusted adults can be a bedrock of support and are specialists at working with children with the highest levels of need. For example, support for children is offered once a child has committed an offence, bringing them to the attention of the youth justice system.
- Children who mistrust adults engage better when it’s on their own terms (attending is not mandatory but voluntary). This relies on building trusting relationships that children see as beneficial, thus increasing their engagement.
- In our approach to finding what works for youth crime prevention, we’ve strengthened the evidence base for youth work specific interventions, which are available on the YEF Toolkit.
- It’s important that we work with the youth sector to continue building evidence, which will leave a legacy for both decision makers and delivery organisations that work directly with children to keep them safe.
Why are we focusing on positive activities?
- Children access a large range of enrichment opportunities that are based in sport, the arts and the outdoors. There are a number of programmes across England and Wales that reach children who need safe spaces to learn, build skills, improve their health and regulate their behaviour.
- Coaches and other types of key staff are fundamental to providing these opportunities for children and building strong relationships through their offer.
- The different settings allows for children with different interests to access these structured activities with a qualified adult.
- The YEF Toolkit shows that sports programmes have a high impact rating on youth crime prevention. Enrichment programmes such as these are popular with children and a great way to engage with those at risk of involvement in violence.
Toolkit evidence for youth crime prevention within the Youth sector
The YEF Toolkit brings together high-quality evidence on approaches commonly used across the youth sector to prevent violence and reduce children’s involvement in crime. It helps youth workers, trusted adults, and youth sector leaders understand which interventions are most effective, which show promise, and which may be ineffective or potentially cause harm.
By comparing programmes, the Toolkit supports informed decision-making based on evidence rather than assumptions. This helps organisations focus time and resources on approaches that are most likely to keep children safe and strengthen youth crime prevention efforts within their communities. The quality of the evidence can also be seen in the Toolkit’s clear ratings system.
Explore more approaches on YEF’s Toolkit summarising the best available research evidence on preventing children and young people’s involvement in violence.
Changing Practice
What should youth work commissioners, funders and delivery organisations do to prevent violence?
This guidance report aims to prevent this violence. It offers youth work commissioners eight evidence-based recommendations to reduce children and young people’s involvement in violence. These recommendations emphasise getting the right focus on vulnerable children and young people and high-risk contexts, funding approaches that work, and laying strong foundations for high-quality youth work.
Changing the system
How should the youth sector system change to better prevent violence?
In Spring 2026, we published new Youth Sector Practice Guidance for reducing children and young people’s involvement in violence. It sets out 8 evidence-based recommendations for youth organisations, covering what effective youth work looks like in practice and how it can support long-term youth crime prevention.
You can use this guidance to shape planning and delivery using the best available evidence. However, your judgment and knowledge of local contexts remain critical in applying them. If you are already following these recommendations, use this guidance to review your approach and identify areas to strengthen.
Our Strategic Advisory Group for the Youth Sector
Our work is supported by an expert panel, including senior youth provision professionals, academics with expertise in youth work approaches and a YEF Youth Advisory Board member.
Our Knowledge Exchange Partners
The Knowledge Exchange Partner Programme is set up to support leading colleagues to share evidence insights within their organisation and their wider partners. We understand that featuring our evidence available in long reports in a concrete way can be highly time consuming and sometimes complex to distil findings.
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FAQs
What does youth crime prevention mean?
Youth crime prevention focuses on reducing the risk of children and young people becoming involved in crime or violence. It includes early support, building positive relationships, and evidence-based approaches that help young people develop the skills and resilience they need to make safer choices.
How does the youth sector support youth crime prevention?
The youth sector at the Youth Endowment Fund plays a key role in youth crime prevention. Young people often engage with youth workers and trusted adults, which helps build strong and consistent relationships. This makes young people more likely to open up and engage in safe spaces.
Once this trust is established, youth workers can help young people build social and emotional skills that reduce the likelihood of involvement in crime.
What is YEF doing to build more evidence?
To gain knowledge of what works, we are evaluating our funded projects in the youth sector, of which are listed below.