Violence Against Women and Girls Prevention Programme

Finding out what works to prevent violence against young women and girls (VAWG) is a key part of delivering on YEF’s mission to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. It is also central to the cross-government strategy “Freedom from Violence and Abuse” that was published in December 2025.

This funding round forms part of a wider YEF programme of funding, evaluation and research over the next three years on what works to prevent and respond to VAWG.  

Objective 1: Promoting Healthy and Respectful Relationships in Secondary Schools 
Introduction
The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) know that supporting children and young people to develop the skills and understanding they need to build healthy and respectful relationships is an important early step to preventing the emergence of harmful behaviours in relationships - including physical, emotional and sexual abuse in relationships, coercive or controlling behaviour, harassment and exploitation, including online and technology-facilitated abuse.  

This is why the Department for Education and the Home Office have partnered with YEF to launch this funding round. YEF are seeking to fund interventions and generate robust evidence on how secondary schools can best be supported to deliver healthy relationships content, improve young people’s knowledge and attitudes towards healthy relationships and harmful behaviours, and ultimately reduce violence against women and girls. This aligns with both Pillar 1: Prevention and early intervention in cross-government strategy on VAWG, and the Department of Education’s roll out of revised statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum in September 2026.

What YEF looking to fund
YEF are inviting applications across two strands:

Strand 1: Building school capacity internally on healthy relationships delivery 
Projects that strengthen the confidence, skills and capacity of secondary school staff to deliver universal, high-quality content around healthy and respectful relationships as part of the new Relationship, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum. We would expect these interventions to:  

Primarily focus on providing training and support for teachers on dealing with sensitive topics in some or all of the areas of Respectful Relationships, Online Safety and Awareness, Being Safe and Intimate and Romantic Relationships in the RSHE curriculum.

YEF will consider interventions that cover the above but also include wider school approaches designed to strengthen school culture, leadership and systems around healthy relationships (such as the integration of healthy relationship topics in other subjects, wider teacher training or awareness campaigns across the school).

Strand 2: Delivery of healthy relationships content of RSHE by external providers 
Projects by experienced, external specialist providers to deliver universal healthy relationships content in the new RSHE curriculum directly to young people in secondary schools (some or all of the topics of Respectful Relationships, Online Safety and Awareness, Being Safe and Intimate and Romantic Relationships).  

Applicants should have some prior experience of delivering the proposed project model. Projects must be delivered in England, and work with young people aged 11-16 in secondary school settings.