The Youth Endowment Fund’s approach to race equity
Disproportionality in the youth justice system
Children from Black, Asian and other minority backgrounds are significantly overrepresented at all stages in the youth justice system. Black children are four times as likely to be arrested as White children. Our Racial Disproportionality report highlights that within the criminal justice system Black children were 64% more likely to be arrested, 84% more likely to be convicted or cautioned and 300% more likely to be in custody, compared to their share of the population.
The Youth Endowment Fund’s mission is to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence. Because of this disproportionality, it is clear that if we don’t challenge the role that racism plays in young people’s experiences of youth justice, education and access to employment and mental health support, we won’t be able to make the difference we’re here to bring about. As an employer and a What Works Centre – we need to make sure we are considering the impact on children from Black, Asian and other minority backgrounds in our decision-making.
Useful resources
Our commitment to race equity
Our commitment to equality was stated in our ten-year strategy. But intention alone won’t bring about change. We’re committed to being an anti-racist organisation and setting out a clear plan to become a racially equitable What Works Centre.
We need to use the evidence we create to challenge our partners to address racism. We also must be the first to challenge our own decision-making. We need to do all we can to continue to fund fairly.
We know that we won’t have all the answers and that we’ll make mistakes, but we hope that by sharing our race equity plans and reporting on our progress, we can deliver on our mission in a way that young people across the country deserve.
Why are we focusing on race equity?
The reason for our explicit focus on race is because of the significant differences in outcomes of the White children and children from Black, Asian and other minority backgrounds who are in contact with the youth justice system. This means that it is almost impossible to deliver our mission without being consciously focused on racial equity.
We need to be clear this commitment doesn’t reflect a view that violence is a problem that is only relevant to people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Unsurprisingly – because they are the largest group – the majority of youth violence is committed by White children. What we want to address are the different ways White children and children from Black, Asian and other minority backgrounds are able to access support and services, including diversion away from formal criminal justice processing. We also recognise that there are lots of issues in society that are associated with young people’s involvement in violence – like poverty or experience of the care system. Our focus on race equity doesn’t mean that we won’t address these too.
Race Equity Progress Report 2023
In October 2022, we published our race equity action plan. This set out clear and actionable race equity commitments across five areas of our work: our funding, our research and change, our partnerships, our leadership and our team.
A year on, we’re pleased to share our first progress report. It highlights what we’ve done, where we’ve taken significant steps forward and where there’s still work to do.
Our goals and objectives for 2025/26
Becoming a racially equitable What Works Centre means ensuring our work helps bring about a world where no child or young person is at greater risk of involvement in violence because of racism. Being racially equitable means our entire team feel equally welcome and able to flourish as part of our organisation, and that our team have the knowledge and understanding to address issues related to race equity in our work. It means we work with partners who share our commitment to advancing race equity, and we challenge practices that don’t align with our commitment, including our own.
Practically, this means that we’ve set ourselves goals across four areas. Find out more below about what we’re doing across:
- Our funding
- Our understanding and work to make change
- Our leadership
- Our team
Our funding
- We’ll make sure our funding reaches organisations with Black, Asian or other minority leaders.
- We’ll provide funding that reaches children from Black, Asian and other minority backgrounds.
Our understanding and work to make change
- We’ll ensure that all new and existing evaluations address racial disparities in outcomes and intersectionality at every stage.
- We’ll ensure that every one of our future reports includes a section on race.
- We’ll ensure our data research produces findings on race.
- We’ll ensure our guidance is informed by and speaks on race.
- We’ll be front-footed on race when we grow demand for evidence
- We’ll push for change on racial inequity.
Our leadership
- We’ll communicate transparently and openly about race and our race equity work
- We’ll ensure our team and governance bodies reflect the communities we serve.
Our team
- We’ll assess and build the confidence of staff to discuss race, racism, and how these issues affect our work.
- We’ll monitor and hold ourselves accountable for our performance against our race equity goals.
