News and opinion

Children who identify as being in gangs are 62 times more likely to be seriously injured and need hospital treatment than their peers. For James*, that risk wasn’t a statistic — it was his daily reality. James was criminally exploited for six years. He describes that period as living in constant uncertainty — afraid of…

Understanding the scale of teenage relationship abuse Every year, thousands of young people across England and Wales experience relationship violence. Our annual Children, Violence and Vulnerability survey, the largest household study of youth experiences of violence, hears directly from nearly 11,000 young people aged 13–17. It reveals the ways in which young people experience violence and the concerning extent of harms facing children in relationships.  The shape of…

Marking Restorative Justice Week, we’re taking a closer look at how restorative justice is increasingly shaping discussions around violence, accountability and rehabilitation — and why the evidence behind it is becoming harder to ignore. It also feels especially timely that one of the most compelling stories about restorative justice has made its way onto a West End stage this autumn.  Putting restorative…

The Neighbourhood Fund puts local communities at the centre of preventing youth violence. Instead of designing solutions from afar, the fund supports people who know their neighbourhood best, residents, local organisations, and young people themselves, to decide: To do this, the Fund invests in five neighbourhoods that have experienced some of the highest and most…

It’s been three years since the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was published by the Department for Education. In that time, families across England and Wales have continued to face challenges related to serious youth violence and criminal exploitation.  As set out in the care review recommendation, better integration of different organisational responses should be prioritised to minimise the number of plans, professionals and organisations that a young person has to deal with and that support should continue…

Where a child lives shouldn’t decide their future but right now, it does. Access to out of court resolutions varies across the country, meaning some children get a second chance while others get a sentence.  What the evidence tells us  In one of our latest blogs, we spoke about:  Introducing the Out of Court Resolution…

At the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), our mission is simple but urgent — to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence.  We know that mental health plays a huge part in this. When children don’t get the right support early on, distress can turn into crisis — and sometimes, that crisis can…