Tackling youth violence: research evidence

Which services or programmes have the best chances of preventing children and young people from becoming involved in violence? Where’s my budget best spent to keep my community safe?

These are tough questions, with real consequences, that police forces, local authorities, youth charities and school leaders routinely grapple with. There’s no silver-bullet or “one size fits all” solution, but research can help separate the approaches that might work from those that are doomed to fail.

Finding reliable research is difficult. All too often knowledge about “what works” is hard to access, hidden behind journal paywalls or on complicated websites. Even when research can be accessed, it’s hard to understand, written in academic jargon without clear recommendations on what should be invested in.

That’s why the Youth Endowment Fund has launched its Toolkit. It is a free online resource which summarises the best available research about different approaches to preventing serious youth violence. Currently, it covers 13 different approaches, with more to be added in the future. For each approach the Toolkit explains what it is, how effective it’s likely to be, how confident you can be in the evidence of its impact, as well as likely costs and links to related resources and programmes.

The research won’t give all the answers, but alongside a practitioner’s professional experience and understanding of the local context and children’s needs, we hope it gives a sense of the “best bets” – approaches that have worked well in the past and are good starting points for the future.

What does the Toolkit say?

One of the approaches that has shown the most promise so far is focused deterrence.

Developed in Boston in the mid-1990s, focused deterrence recognises that most serious violence is associated with a small group of people who are themselves very likely to be victims of exploitation, trauma and extremely challenging circumstances. The approach attempts to identify the people most likely to be involved in violence and provide support to offer them an alternative route. The age of the people involved depends on the context and the crime problem identified, but projects have worked with children as young as 14 or 15.

It’s been successfully delivered in Glasgow, when people involved in violence were offered opportunities in exchange for a “no violence, no weapon” pledge. Research suggested that violent offending was reduced by half for young people who participated in the intervention for two years.

While the research suggests that focused deterrence can lead to large reductions in violence, the approach is relatively expensive to deliver and requires close collaboration between many stakeholders.

Other, less costly, approaches which are commonly used, supported by a strong-evidence base and have also shown to have a high impact on violent crime are cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and social skills training.

When CBT is applied to violence prevention, it aims to help children and young people become more aware of negative thoughts and learn to change or manage them. These thought patterns will often be related to trauma following a young person’s experience of violence and other distressing events. Research has shown that, on average, CBT reduced crime by 27 per cent and is highly effective in both reducing crime overall and behaviours associated with crime and violence.

Social skills training supports children to think before they act, understand other people’s perspectives, communicate effectively and use strategies for managing impulsiveness or aggression. The research suggests that, on average, the impact of social skills training on preventing violence is likely to be high. It’s particularly effective when working with children who are already demonstrating a need for more intensive support and with children aged nine to 10.

There are also approaches that the YEF Toolkit has found can be actively harmful. Unlike therapies or programmes that offer children support, activities that are solely focused on deterrence and try to “shock” children into changing their behaviour (like military-style bootcamps) can lead to more reoffending. Possible explanations for this negative impact include children being removed from their family and community networks, and a failure to connect children to high-quality aftercare to help them make a positive return to normal life.

Mind the gap

The YEF Toolkit draws on research in our Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) – an online resource which maps over 2,000 studies from across the world that look at the effectiveness of different interventions on preventing serious violence.

It highlights that while there’s extensive evidence in some areas - such as for interventions focused on parents/main carers and interventions supporting positive behaviours, like social skills training and CBT - there are significant gaps in the evidence for others.

For example, there’s less research on: systems-based approaches such as public health and multi-agency approaches; contextual safeguarding; interventions that aim to prevent child criminal exploitation; and interventions targeted specifically at over-represented groups in the criminal justice system, for example, black, Asian and minority ethnic children and young people or children with experience of the care system. This is not to say these approaches don’t work, just that there’s a lack of research in these areas.

More broadly, the largest share of the studies were conducted in the United States, pointing us towards a general need for more high-quality UK-based impact evaluations.

To improve the quality of UK evidence on youth violence and to improve our understanding of what works, for whom and why, the YEF is prioritising funding projects where we can run rigorous evaluations, like randomised control trials. Just as you wouldn’t offer children vaccines that were untested, we believe services that play a significant role in children’s development and prospects deserve the same level of testing and scrutiny. We know that, even though they’re an incredibly important way of building our knowledge of what works, even the best, most robust evaluations won’t give us a full picture of what needs to change to keep young people safe. That’s why we’re investing in hearing directly from young people and using what they tell us to shape our work.

Youth voice

We’re involving young people in all areas of our work. Young people will not only shape where we focus our funding and research (through our Youth Advisory Board) but will also play an active role in carrying out the research themselves. We’re investing in a national network of peer researchers – the Peer Action Collective – who will find out about young people’s lives and their experiences of violence. They will be supported to take what they learn and turn it into action, whether it’s campaigning to improve local mental health services, setting up a youth centre or supporting young people into employment.

By building the evidence of what works, ensuring it is grounded in the real-life experiences of young people and working together to put this knowledge into practice, we can make sure that every child and young person gets the very best support possible.

• More from www.youthendowmentfund/toolkit
  
  

Key research reports and resources on youth violence

Youth Endowment Fund’s Evidence and Gap Map
Youth Endowment Fund (2020)

The Evidence and Gap Map is an interactive online tool that provides an overview of what research has been done on preventing children from becoming involved in violence. It includes more than 2,000 evaluations and systematic reviews, making it the largest map of studies on this topic in the world.

The Early Intervention Foundation Guidebook
Early Intervention Foundation

The EIF Guidebook provides information about early intervention programmes that have been evaluated and shown to improve outcomes for children and young people.

The Youth Violence Commission Final Report
The Youth Violence Commission (2020)

The report puts forward policy recommendations following five years of consultation with young people, academics and practitioners to better understand how serious violence manifests itself in young people’s lives.

The Youth Justice Resource Hub
Youth Justice Board for England and Wales (YJB)

This platform allows youth justice professionals, academics, researchers, students and volunteers to share practice and, where available, evidence and research on a wide range of topics linked to tackling youth violence.

Serious Violence Strategy
Home Office (2018)

The strategy sets out the government’s response to serious violence and recent increases in knife crime, gun crime and homicide. Action is centred on four main themes: tackling county lines and misuse of drugs, early intervention and prevention, supporting communities and local partnerships, and law enforcement.

Serious Violence in Context: Understanding the Scale and Nature of Serious Violence
Crest Advisory (2019)

This report provides an overview of serious violence, examines the scale and nature of the problem, the state of existing knowledge and gaps in understanding.

Intervening Early to Prevent Gang and Youth Violence: the Role of Primary Schools
Early Intervention Foundation (2018)

This report explores the extent to which young children at risk of gang involvement or youth violence are supported through evidence-based early intervention, particularly within primary schools.

Glasgow’s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence – Second Year Report
Violence Reduction Unit

This reports on the success of Glasgow’s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence – a multi-agency and community-centred project designed to reduce violent behaviour among gangs.