Jon Yates

Two questions I get asked a lot as head of the Youth Endowment Fund is “does social media cause violence?” and “what do we do about it?” So, here’s my attempt at some answers. Does social media cause violence? The short answer is we don’t know, but I think it’s likely. Here’s the thing: there…

It is five years since the Youth Endowment Fund was born. Five years is a long time – I know because I had a three-year-old when this work started. She’s been replaced by someone who is eight.   We exist because she should be growing up in a world where all children feel safe. But that’s…

One teenager punches and kicks another until the victim curls up in the foetal position on the ground. A boy sexually assaults a girl, while his friends cheer him on from the sidelines.

The Youth Endowment Fund is partnering with the Government and Youth Futures Foundation to deliver and evaluate summer jobs programmes for up to 2,600 young people at risk of becoming involved in youth violence and crime.

I want to tell you about a child – aged just ten years old – whose life was being shaped by the violence around him. Leo’s* dad was a gang leader. There were people in his life who were deeply connected to crime and violence. He looked up to them, wanted to be like them.…

Over the summer of 2020, something very odd happened in Southend-on-Sea. In parts of the city, violent crime plummeted not by 10% or 20%, not even by 40% or 50%. It fell by a whopping 74%. There were fewer serious assaults, robberies and drug trafficking offences. What caused this dramatic fall? It couldn’t be the…

Launched today, the YEF Toolkit is one way we’ll make sure that the best available research on preventing violence is translated into change.   

Jon Yates, Executive Director, Youth Endowment Fund Involvement in violence devastates children and young people’s lives. The pandemic risks making this even worse with children missing months of school and struggling to access support from adults that they trust and rely on. Everyone I speak to about this tragedy, has one core message: we need…