The Vital Role of Youth Work in Reducing Violence and Supporting Young People 

Youth work week is here, a good time to reflect on this important profession, practice, and approach. A profession that evoked passion in me and has been a driving force in my career, I imagine there are thousands within the youth sector who would say the same – you might be one or working with many of them.  
 
Youth work has had a transformative impact on countless young people. It would be hard to say how many adults have been recipients and benefited from attending a youth club to engage with a youth worker, I would lean towards ‘many’. What is surreal is that half of all 10 year olds are still attending some form of youth provision.   Our upcoming Children, Violence, and Vulnerability 2024 report will offer insights into children’s experiences with youth clubs and violence (see our 2023 report). 

What is youth work? 

Youth work comes in varied shapes and sizes, delivered across multiple settings (indoor and outdoor), immersing children in a multitude of activities to deliver its primary function ‘informal education’. Children aged 10-17 are usually the target participants for youth work (depending on the needs of the children), this sometimes tips in to 18-25 because of learning difficulties or special needs.  
 
Youth work is an asset for developing children outside of formal settings such as school to engage in fun ways (voluntary participation by children is a critical fundament of youth work practice) to learn or navigate the world around them whilst learning about themselves. Due to being driven by the desire and passion to help children, Youth work can happen pretty much anywhere and that is a huge advantage as youth work seeks to build trust through the act of ‘relationship building’.  

The Importance of Youth Work in Building Trust and Reducing Violence 

Building relationships with young people facing trauma or lacking social skills is an underrated but essential skill in youth work. It allows children to trust others, aspire, and build brighter futures. It is interesting that in the corporate world building relationships to ‘get the sale done’ is highly reputable and a well-paid skill, yet working with children to help them aspire and cement their future is not treated in the same vein.  

I can hear you asking, ‘Caleb, qualify this statement’, the qualifying statement would need two words ‘2012, austerity’. A challenging time would follow with the decimation of youth provision, it was one of the first things to be seen as ‘nice to have’ or ‘nice to have, gulp’!  Austerity measures led to a 60% reduction in youth work funding between 2011 and 2021, creating a vacuum – with the number of youth workers reduced by 4,500 and local authority-supported youth clubs falling from an average of 14 to 8. 

It is vitally important to state that section 507B of the the Education Act 1996 sets out the duty to provide sufficient youth provision for children in each local authority that is reasonably practicable. However, about one third of local authority councils in England have a form of youth services although operating on reduced budgets. Wales saw a 23% reduction, formerly spending £121 per head is now £91, however youth services are available across all Welsh local authority areas although with reduced spends – Wales has been protected compared to England due to the strong policy focus on youth work. 

 
Youth Work and Violence Prevention: What Works?

When a young person tells you directly that they did not follow their peers into a violent incident because ‘your voice was in my head and I just turned my bike around’, there is a great sense of joy and an overwhelming feeling of success that is very normal in the youth work world. I personally have countless stories like this and so do many other youth work colleagues operating to reduce violence.  The difficulty is proving this in an unbiased way, using a standardised outcome measuring tool and get ‘repeatability’, which can easily soak up programme costs – leaving youth work in an unhelpful dichotomy. That’s why it is important that YEF embark on building robust evidence, which can literally be a game changer for the youth sector.  

What does the current evidence tell us are the strongest approaches that youth work can undertake to help children involved in violence? The evidence points to mentoring and targeted sports programmes.  
 
Mentoring has a moderate impact of reducing youth violence, meaning that it is a good bet and youth workers are primed (especially if they have counselling skills) to engage and support young people – where most services cannot reach them. With a reduction of 21% on violence and 19% on reoffending – it works best with children who have high levels of need (at risk of or already involved in violence), YEF have moderate confidence in this evidence rating. 
 

Sports programmes have a high impact on reducing offending and need to be targeted at the right children. In the evidence we also see large effects for externalising behaviour and aggression, although there is weak evidence to support this (no large-scale studies and lots of smaller studies).  There may be greater impacts when sports programmes are implemented over a longer period, for single sex groups and including children from ethnic minority backgrounds. There is much cross-over in the voluntary sector space as sports coaches and youth workers can deliver sporting programmes, sometimes working in partnership to achieve this. 

How to Stay Informed on Evidence-Based Youth Work Practices 

Here are my top tips to stay informed as more evidence becomes available: 

1. Sign up to our youth sector newsletter, it is the quickest way to hear about any sector developments at YEF. 

2. Join and attend our Virtual Learning Cafés, where we  explore what the current evidence says and how this is applied in the work of selected guest speakers.  

3. Keep a look out for the youth sector practice guidance due to launch in Autumn 2025 aimed at commissioners and delivery organisations. Followed by system guidance in Spring 2026 which will have recommendations aimed at government departments and policy leads. 

How to Invest in Youth Work to Reduce Violence 

As thousands of organisations in the youth sector take stock, there is a hope that YEF can build robust evidence that the youth sector can thrive from and continue to deliver important services to children who need them most. 

A Look to the Future 

As I reflect on my own career working with children involved in serious ‘things’ across London, Derby, Manchester and Salford, I identify with much of the sector that is still working with children even in tight fiscal measures. Last month (October) Labour announced a national youth work strategy, they have also pledged to half knife crime as part of their election manifesto and my honest gut feeling is that Youth work with some resource could be vital to support this ambition, youth organisations should seek to enhance their work by embedding evidence based approaches.  
 
In Wales Youth work week takes place in June every year, so keep an eye out from Welsh colleagues who will be celebrating in 2025.