Targeted projects

This funding is currently paused.

We’ve had an incredible response to our targeted projects funding. Thanks to your offers of partnership and shared desire to find out what works to keep children safe, we’ve already exceeded the number of grants we intended to make in 2022/23. This means that we’ve currently paused applications for this stream of funding. We are likely to reopen for Targeted Projects applications around summer 2023 (though this may be subject to change).

In the meantime, you can still check your eligibility and leave us your details (which we’ll use to get in touch with you when we’re ready to start funding Targeted Projects again). You can also get in touch with the team by emailing us at mollie.bourne@youthendowmentfund.org.uk

Introduction

Our  targeted projects funding is for programmes that don’t fit into our themed rounds or place-based funding, but are widely used or promising with the potential to scale. We’ll provide the resources to fund, evaluate and learn from them.

Applications are assessed both individually and competitively against other proposals submitted during the same rolling period.

We will prioritise applications from organisations that:

• Are reaching, or have the potential to reach, the highest number of children across multiple regions.
• Are ready for large scale trials earlier.
• Have the greatest potential to achieve change at scale. This could be through you directly scaling up your programme, others learning from what you do or by your programme leading to a change in the system.
• Have secured significant match funding.

Eligibility

Organisations can apply for targeted projects funding against two strands of activity. Across both strands there is a requirement for organisations to have significant match funding. This can include in-kind contributions or previously secured grant funding, for example, if project staff time is already paid for – by you, a partner or other funder – those staff costs will count as match funding.

We are also open to applications from organisations that have secured all delivery costs and are only seeking YEF support to cover the evaluation. In this instance, all delivery costs will count as match funding.

If you are applying for YEF to cover only the cost of evaluation, we do not need you to know the exact costs for that at this stage, we will help you work that out as part of the next stage of the application process (the co-design phase).

Strand one

To fund and evaluate popular and commonly used interventions and approaches to better understand their effectiveness. Projects applying under this strand must:

• Be able to clearly explain what the project involves and how the activity achieves its intended impact. This is sometimes called a theory of change, which is a method to help describe long-term goals and map backwards to explain how an intervention will get you there.
• Be actively reaching hundreds of children each year in England and/or Wales.

Strand two

To fund and evaluate promising interventions and approaches that draw on good evidence and have the potential for impact at scale. Projects applying under this strand must:

• Be able to draw on evidence to clearly explain what the project involves and how the activity achieves its intended impact (a theory of change).
• Be willing and likely to deliver to hundreds of children within two years in England and/or Wales.

Funded projects

1. Step Together

• Delivery partner: West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit
• Evaluation partner: Ipsos Mori and London School of Economics
• Co-funder: Home Office
• Evaluation type: Pilot study
• Target regions: West Midlands
• Funding amount awarded for project delivery: £420,000
• Funding amount awarded for evaluation: £254,000

The Step Together pilot project aims to help keep children and young people safe on their journey to and from school. The project sees youth workers based along routes to school, acting as trusted adults and a point of contact. Their job is to de-escalate potential violence and to build positive relationships. The scheme launched in Erdington, seventeen other routes across the West Midlands will also open in the near future.

2. Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforces (APST)

• Delivery partner: Department for Education
• Evaluation partner: RAND Europe, University of Westminster and FFT Education Datalab
• Evaluation type: Efficacy study
• Target regions: West Midlands; North West – Greater Manchester; Yorkshire and the Humber; North West – Lancashire; London; South West; East Midlands
• Funding amount awarded for evaluation: £522,000

Alternative provision specialist taskforces will work directly with young people in alternative provision settings to offer intensive support from experts, including mental health professionals, family workers, and speech and language therapists. This 2-year programme will aim to keep pupils that are in alternative provision – including those who have been excluded from school – engaged in education, getting them back on track with their studies and preventing them from being criminally exploited.

3. Support, Attain, Fulfil, Exceed (SAFE) Taskforces

• Delivery partner: Department for Education
• Evaluation partner: RAND Europe, University of Westminster and FFT Education Datalab
• Evaluation type: Efficacy study
• Target regions: West Midlands; North West – Greater Manchester; Yorkshire and the Humber; North West – Lancashire; London; South West; East Midlands
• Funding amount awarded for evaluation: £891,000

SAFE taskforces which will be rolled out in 10 serious violence hotspot areas from September 2022. This 3-year initiative will be led by local schools to protect young people at risk of truancy and exclusion. The SAFE programme will deliver targeted interventions to reduce truancy, improve behaviours, and reduce the risk of individuals failing to enter education, employment or training (NEET).

4. SHiFT

• Delivery partner: SHiFT
• Evaluation partner: Centre for Evidence and Implementation
• Evaluation type: Feasibility study
• Target regions: London
• Funding amount: £50,000

SHiFT works with children who are caught up in, or are at risk of, harm. Multidisciplinary teams of professionals work systematically with young people, their family, friends and community (including any statutory bodies) to develop trusted, therapeutic relationships that can break destructive cycles of behaviour.

5. Excluded Initiative

• Delivery partner: John Lyon’s Charity and The London Community Foundation
• Evaluation partner: University College London
• Evaluation type: Capacity building
• Target regions: London
• Funding amount: £97,500

Excluded Initiative offers special support to secondary schools in London that have exclusion rates higher than the national average and are seeking to tackle these issues in an inclusive, nurturing way by building their inclusion capacity and expertise to drive down exclusions to a minimum.

6. Police in Schools – Corridors

• Delivery partner: National Police Chiefs’ Council (YEF are not funding the delivery of this project)
• Evaluation partner: Kings College London & Cardiff University
• Evaluation type: Feasibility & Pilot
• Target regions: London – London Metropolitan Police (scoping and mapping will cover all police forces in England and Wales)
• Funding amount awarded for evaluation: £206, 948.50

The roles that police in schools play in schools vary across contexts, but broadly speaking there are two main types: ‘Police in Corridors’ and ‘Police in Classrooms’.

Police in Corridors seeks to embed police into the daily activities of a school. Their activities can include attending staff meetings, conducting patrols and weapons and drugs sweeps, conducting educational conversations with offending students, leading assemblies on topics related to the law and engaging in informal interactions with students (e.g. by sitting in the lunch room). This approach aims to increase police visibility, facilitate earlier detection of warning signs and allow decisive early action to prevent harm. 

The pilot evaluation will involve 10 schools in the London area, randomised at school level. We will use the findings of this evaluation to determine whether we progress to an efficacy trial. The evaluation also includes scoping, mapping and in-depth work across all police forces in England and Wales as well as an implementation and process evaluation.

7. Police in Schools – Classrooms

• Delivery partner: National Police Chiefs’ Council (YEF are not funding the delivery of this project) & PSHE Association
• Evaluation partner: Kings College London & Cardiff University
• Evaluation type: Feasibility & Pilot
• Target regions: Bristol – Avon and Somerset Police (scoping and mapping will cover all police forces in England and Wales)
• Funding amount awarded for evaluation: £206, 948.50

The roles that police in schools play in schools vary across contexts, but broadly speaking there are two main types: ‘Police in Corridors’ and ‘Police in Classrooms’.

Police in Classrooms aims to provide age-appropriate classroom instruction on a variety of topics, from drugs and alcohol to knife crime to online safety, among others. They aim to demystify the police, and in so doing make police in general more approachable by young people who may be at risk or need help.

This trial will evaluate a Police in Classroom curriculum developed by the PSHE Association. The curriculum will comprise of four units: Personal Safety, Drugs and the Law, Violence Prevention, and Knife Crime—with each unit containing three lessons. As per PSHE guidance, each unit will be taught collaboratively, with the classroom teacher teaching the first and third lessons and the specially trained schools officer teaching the middle lesson.

The pilot evaluation will involve 10 schools in the Bristol area, randomised at school year level. We will use the findings of this evaluation to determine whether we progress to an efficacy trial. The evaluation also includes scoping, mapping and in-depth work across all police forces in England and Wales as well as an implementation and process evaluation. 

The Lab: Ending Youth Violence

The Lab: Ending Youth Violence is a venture between Stuart Roden, the Youth Endowment Fund and the Behavioural Insights Team.

The Lab focuses on identifying promising projects, which seek to address youth violence, and funds the development and delivery of those projects to get them ready for robust evaluations.

The Lab are funding and supporting the following projects:

GenPMTO

• Delivery organisation: Barnardos
• Evaluation type: Feasibility, Pilot and Efficacy

This parenting programme involves trained practitioners working with parents to support the use of positive parenting strategies at home. It involves parents attending about 10-14 weekly sessions.

STOP

• Delivery organisation: Sex Education Forum
• Evaluation type: Feasibility

STOP is a new school-based intervention designed to prevent dating and relationship violence (DRV) and gender-based violence (GBV). It will draw on two well established approaches.  The first, Shifting Boundaries, is a US developed intervention with classroom and structural elements which has been shown to tackle DRV and GBV.  The second, Learning Together, is an anti-bullying intervention which has made use of  student-staff action groups to develop a school-wide approach.

Face It

• Delivery organisation: Khulisa
• Evaluation type: Pilot

This school-based programme is delivered by therapeutically trained facilitators, combining creative techniques like storytelling, art, debating, and role-play, with the latest developments in neuroscience. It aims to support young people at risk of exclusion over a six-week period.

How to apply

Due to our approach to evidence and understanding, the application process can take up to six months to complete.  If your project is time sensitive (for example, if you’re only applying for evaluation costs for a programme due to begin within the next six months), please email us to arrange a call to discuss your proposal before applying.