Four charities are among organisations running youth arts, activity and sports schemes to receive £11m in funding to test their effectiveness in diverting young people away from crime and violence.

The investment is being made by the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), which is commissioning trials from music charity AudioActive, youth sports charity Dallaglio Rugby Works, the National Literacy Trust and youth activity charity Street Games.

A total of six organisations are to share funding. Also receiving money to fund and test youth schemes are the Rugby Football Leave and employment and community support firm Ingeus.

The trials include the YEF’s first funding for a scheme in the youth secure estate, through the National Literacy Trust’s New Chapters programme, which has received £1.68mn and will be evaluated by the University of Manchester.

This 12-week creative writing programme is being run by the charity at Feltham, Werrington and Wetherby youth offender institutions as well as at the Oasis Restore secure school.

“New Chapters offers young people who are serving custodial sentences a space in which they can exercise creative freedom, find their voice, develop their literacy and communication skills and, most importantly, feel heard,” said National Literacy Trust head of criminal justice Rebecca Perry.

AudioActive’s £2.17mn funding focuses on its SHIFT music mentoring scheme in Sussex. This six-month initiative pairs young people with musicians who are also trained as youth workers.

“Over the last six years, SHIFT has shown promising evidence of its impact, however we still see a lot of scepticism in the media, politics and criminal justice system around the value and impact of using music - especially some genres of black music - in this context,” said AudioActive chief executive Adam Joolia.

“This is further compounded by a dearth of a strong quantitative evidence base for both music mentoring specifically and the arts in general and we feel privileged to be working with YEF to spearhead better impact demonstration in this area.”



Dallaglio RugbyWorks has received £1.93mn to support and evaluate a trial to engage young people, who are excluded from education, in sport.

Schemes will take place in pupil referral units and alternative provision in mainstream schools. Evaluation will focus on the impact of its initiatives on behavioural difficulties.

The sports charity’s chief executive Zenna Hopson said: “Conducting randomised control trials is challenging but absolutely essential to demonstrate the effectiveness of our programme.

“This funding will allow us to rigorously test our methods and prove that our approach truly makes a difference in the lives of young people.”

Meanwhile, 50 youth organisations are to take part in StreetGames’ Towards Sport programme, which has received £2.63mn in funding. This trial will involve more than 3,000 young people aged between 10 and 17.

Street Games UK director of strategic business relationships Stuart Felce said: "The transformative power of sport in changing young people’s lives cannot be overstated.

“Young people in low-income, underserved communities face significant challenges, making them more vulnerable to youth crime.”

YEF public affairs and communications director Ciaran Thapar added: “From grassroots sports groups to the secure estate, our latest funding and evaluations demonstrate our commitment to building high-quality, reliable evidence on what works to prevent violence.

“Evaluations of this scale and nature are complex and challenging, so having six brilliant organisations recognise the value of these trials and collaborate closely with our team and evaluators to make it happen deserves huge credit.”

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