Preventing youth violence
Introduction
Every day, community groups across the country provide vital support to children and young people. Many promote strong foundations, like good mental wellbeing, resilience, and stable, supportive relationships. Others work with children who have experienced trauma, helping them build positive pathways to adulthood. Some help young people to understand the causes and consequences of conflict, while others support former gang members to move forward by offering positive alternatives.
They play a wide range of roles, reflecting the diverse experiences and needs of children and young people. Here, we share insights and experiences from their work, highlighting what they are learning about preventing and reducing youth violence.
We recommend reading these insights alongside the Violence Prevention Toolkit, which summarises the research evidence on approaches to preventing children and young people's involvement in violence.
Why this matters
The latest statistics from the Youth Endownment Foundation (YEF) show that serious violence affecting children and young people is falling across England and Wales.
Across their 3 core measures of violence, all show an improving picture compared with the previous year. The statistics show:
the number of 16–24 year old homicide victims fell by 41%
hospital admissions for knife assault among 0–17-year-olds fell by 20%
cautions and convictions of children for violent offences fell by 3%
This is a positive direction of travel, although every case is one too many: youth violence has devastating consequences not only for young people themselves, but also for their families, victims, and wider communities.
And although these statistics show a positive movement, data from the YEF show that there are more children being arrested for sexual offences than at any point in the past decade. Violence against young women and girls is a serious and underreported issue.
What we've learned
Building strong foundations
Early experiences can have a lasting impact on a young person's life. For that reason we believe in working together to support families and communities to give children the best start in life. Based on what we've learned, the following help children and young people build strong foundations.
Adopting a whole-community approach
Preventing violence requires coordinated action that supports not only young people, but also the families, schools, services, and communities around them.
Funding priorities
Prioritising investment in early action. This shift is essential, but not always easy to achieve. In practical terms, many of the groups we fund find it difficult to focus on prevention when their limited resources go into supporting large numbers of young people who are already involved in violence.
Public health approach
Taking a public health approach to violence prevention. This means recognising the links between violence, trauma, poor mental health, and social exclusion, and addressing the factors that increase risk.
Resilience
Building young people’s resilience, helping them develop the confidence, skills, and support networks they need to cope with challenges and setbacks. Many community groups contribute to this work by supporting families through difficult times, working with schools on targeted resilience building programmes, and helping children build the social and emotional skills that enable them to form positive relationships and navigate life's challenges.
Trauma and sustainability
Taking a long-term view. We should not underestimate the impact of trauma and instability in many young people's lives, or the time needed to support recovery and change. Sustainable improvements require long-term commitment rather than short-term fixes.
Early intervention and collaboration
Identifying young people at risk as early as possible. This requires effective collaboration between statutory agencies, schools, police, and community organisations, and extend from collecting data, to sharing and using it to identify and support at-risk youth at the earliest possibility.
Awareness
Equipping professionals and communities to recognise risk factors. Teachers, youth workers, police, coaches, and other trusted adults should be supported to understand the causes of challenging behaviour and respond constructively.
Trust and connection
Valuing the expertise of voluntary and community organisations. These groups often have trusted relationships with young people affected by violence and bring valuable insight through lived experience and co-production.
Key messages
Preventing youth violence requires a long-term, whole-community response. It should bring together authorities and statutory services, communities, and families to address the root causes and help affected young people make positive changes.
Community groups add significant value, not least because they often have the trust, relationships, and local knowledge needed to reach young people who are disengaged from other services and involved in violent lifestyles. They also focus on building strengths, creating trusted relationships, and providing the right support at the right time.
Building young people's confidence and resilience to cope with life’s ups and downs is important, as is providing opportunities for them to develop the skills needed to manage conflict. It’s helpful to offer the support in settings that young people know, trust, and feel comfortable in.
Find out more
We carried out this research in 2019 and provided some updates in 2025.
You can find the full report in our Evidence Library.
You can search our Evidence Library for other National Lottery funded studies on youth violence.