When you think of the government’s safer streets mission and its ambition to halve knife crime over the next decade, youth workers and youth clubs may not be the first things that come to mind. Yet the youth sector has a vital role to play in reducing crime and keeping children safe, far beyond the remit of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport or the National Youth Strategy alone.
To support the use of evidence in designing and delivering youth services, the Youth Endowment Fund has published new guidance on how youth work can best prevent violence. It aims to help commissioners and policymakers make informed decisions about investing in high-quality provision.
While youth work may sit organisationally in one part of government, the guidance is relevant to all departments whose remits intersect with improving children’s outcomes.
Children and young people most vulnerable to violence often share similar risk indicators. They may have been excluded or severely absent from school, attend alternative provision – arranged by local authorities or schools for pupils who cannot attend mainstream school – be in care or have had contact with the criminal justice system. These overlapping characteristics cut across departmental boundaries, which raises shared questions for policymakers: how do we reach the children most in need? What support is most likely to make a difference? And how can agencies work more effectively together?
Part of the answer lies in the services and people who already have consistent, voluntary contact with vulnerable children and young people. Youth workers and youth clubs are notable examples. Research from YEF shows that children who have experienced challenges, such as being supported by a social worker, being at risk of criminal exploitation or having been excluded from school, are around twice as likely to attend youth clubs.
In high-crime areas, these settings provide accessible spaces where trusted relationships with adults can develop naturally and offer opportunities to divert children and young people away from behaviours that put them at risk.
A recent study found that children in areas of London where all nearby youth clubs had closed became 14% more likely to commit crime, with violent crime rising by around 20% and exam performance declining slightly. Beyond open-access youth clubs, skilled youth workers also deliver interventions with evidence of reducing crime and violence, including long-term mentoring programmes, sports programmes and hospital-based interventions such as A&E navigator services for young people injured through violence. Together, this evidence shows youth work is a core part of the system for prevention, not a peripheral add-on.
Yet youth work has often been treated as a “nice to have”. Provision is geographically patchy and youth services are not always integrated into local safeguarding strategies. Since 2010, the number of council-run youth centres has more than halved. In one in eight local authorities, youth workers are involved in formal safeguarding systems only a few times a year or not at all. And in over a third of emergency departments in high-crime areas, A&E navigator programmes are absent. In short, children who could benefit most are not always guaranteed access to youth services that can help keep them safe.
The new YEF guidance responds to these challenges. It brings together global research on the types of youth work that can prevent violence and translates it into practical recommendations for commissioners. By combining this evidence with local insight, commissioners – particularly at the local authority level – can make decisions that ensure children and young people access the support most likely to make a difference, while also using public funds efficiently.
At its heart, the guidance positions youth work as part of the solution, rather than the solution itself. It encourages a more coordinated approach, helping different parts of the system to work together. In doing so, it aims to improve outcomes not only in reducing crime and violence but also across other government priorities. It offers local authorities a practical, evidence-based resource to translate national strategies into action on the ground, with the National Youth Strategy being a timely example.
So what can be done to make youth work as effective as possible at preventing violence? Our guidance highlights eight practical steps:
- Target support where violence risk is highest
- Close the most urgent gaps in youth club access
- Raise the standard and reach of mentoring
- Maximise the protective power of positive activities
- Embed sustained support in high-need A&E departments
- Make multi-year core funding the default
- Equip youth workers to safeguard children and young people
- Prioritise evidence-based strategies and avoid harmful approaches
Caleb Jackson is head of change for the youth sector at the Youth Endowment Fund. Read the new Youth Work and Violence Prevention guidance here