We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.
We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence.
We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.
FIND OUT WHAT WORKS
Youth Endowment Fund Toolkit
We’ve developed the YEF Toolkit as a free online resource to help you put evidence of what works to prevent serious violence into action.
Find out what works for your area of work, and how we can collaboratively help make a positive change to the lives of young people at risk of violence.
Sectors
To help us make the biggest difference over the ten years of our endowment, we’ve selected seven sectors where we’ll use evidence to identify what works and what needs to change, so that children are better supported and violence reduces.
For each sector we’ll produce practice and systems guidance, alongside online and in-person events to join.
Education
Youth Justice
Children’s Services
Policing
Health
Youth
Neighbourhoods
Our latest research reports
Find out what works through evaluation and guidance reports
- Research
Report:Access to Mental Health Support
About the Report This report examines how children and young people involved in, or at risk of, serious youth violence in England and Wales access mental health support — and how that access can be improved. It draws on five strands of research: literature reviews, data analysis, service mapping, and over 100 in-depth interviews with…Health - Report
Report:Evidence Review on Poverty and Youth Crime and Violence
Understanding the relationship between poverty and crime and violence The link between poverty and children’s involvement in crime and violence is well established. But the details of this relationship are complex and not fully understood. To explore these complexities, the Youth Endowment Fund commissioned a systematic review by the Jill Dando Institute Research Laboratory at… - Statistics briefing
Report:Beyond the Headlines 2025
About the report Every year, thousands of children are affected by violence. But is the situation improving – or getting worse? And how well are the systems that support children responding? To help answer these questions, we have created a core indicators dashboard, tracking 11 key measures. It’s designed to cut through complexity and offer…
Funded projects
We fund work in England and Wales that aims to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence – especially those aged between 10 and 14-years old.
Every programme and activity we fund, we’ll evaluate. We do this because we want to learn what works, for whom and why.
Funding good work
We fund work in England and Wales that aims to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence.
Finding what works
We evaluate every programme and activity that we fund. Our aim is to find out what works, for whom and why.
Working for change
To make a lasting difference we’ll build a movement of people and organisations passionate about making sure that young people get the very best support possible.
Youth Advisory Board
We’re giving young people a stake in our decision making and a voice on the issues that matter to them.
We can only achieve by putting young people at the heart of our work. That’s why we’ve set-up a Youth Advisory Board.
Latest from YEF
What’s new at YEF
- Blog
Blog:Tackling the postcode lottery of diversion for children: a new free digital tool to support effective out of court resolution practice.
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… - Blog
Blog:When help comes too late: what we learned about access to mental health support for children at risk of violence
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… - News
News:Young people shouldn’t have to offend to access mental health support, experts warn
“It probably took about three or four years until the point that he stabbed somebody and ended up in custody… I almost feel like we didn’t even give him that opportunity.” That was how one professional described a boy who waited years for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). His story is not unusual.…
Newsletter
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Be the first to hear about:
- New Toolkit strands
- New guidance reports
- New funding rounds
- New research: one of the largest studies of children’s experiences of violence.