The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) has opened a new £10 million grant round. Focused on the theme of ‘positive activities’, the round will test the impact of sports, arts and adventure and 
wilderness activities on preventing violence.
The YEF’s mission is to find what works to prevent children becoming involved in violence and build a movement to put this knowledge into practice. Through its new grant round, the charity will fund projects which use positive activities as a means to protect children from violence and as a ‘hook’ to engage them in other support services. For example, talking therapies, mentoring or social skills training.
The grant round is aimed at projects which support children who are already involved in the youth justice system (for example, in either custodial or community-based settings) or are considered at high-risk of becoming involved in offending.
The Home Office backed charity is aiming to invest between £9 million and £10 million to fund and evaluate five or six large-scale projects in England and Wales. Projects must deliver one of the following positive activities:
- Sports
- The arts (including music making, arts and craft, dancing, drama, creative writing and poetry, photography, painting, pottery, sculpture or new media/digital arts)
- Adventure activities
- Wilderness activities
Projects will be funded for a maximum of 24 months and will need to support a minimum of 350 children over this period.
Deadline: 26 May 2023, 5pm