The Home Office-backed charity will spend up to £12.5 million to evaluate six to 10 projects through its new A trusted adult funding round, designed to find out more about how trusted adult relationships can prevent 10- to 18-year-olds from becoming involved in violence.
The YEF is interested to fund interventions where young people have been assigned a mentor, key worker or case worker outside their family environment - this could be a teacher, youth worker, or sports coach. They want to test whether these relationships enable better outcomes for young people who are already impacted or involved in crime and violence.
Projects that work with children and young people who are involved in crime, violence and trafficking; affected by serious violence, criminal or sexual exploitation; or from families with a history of harmful or challenging behaviour and repetitive cycles of abuse, trauma and neglect are invited to apply for the funding.
The application guidance states that the charity is “particularly interested” in projects that successfully support groups that are “overrepresented in the youth justice system” or those that struggle to access mainstream support services, such as those from black, Asian and other racially minoritised groups; those who have experience of care, and young women and girls.
In addition to mentoring and key or case worker projects, YEF is interested to learn more about "violence interrupter models", where people are recruited to talk about their personal relationships, lived experience and standing in the community to address ongoing disputes and prevent them from escalating into serious violence.
Jon Yates, executive director at the YEF, said: “When a child or young person is at a difficult and traumatic point in their life, having an adult who they trust and can turn to for guidance and advice can make a big difference.
“Through our funding round, we want to better understand how these trusted adult relationships can improve young people’s emotions, skills and behaviours. We also want to learn how different support can help young people stay away from crime and violence or stop them becoming involved in the first place.”
Applications for the YEF's grant round are open until Friday 25 November 2022.
