20 groups on youth violence front line share £400,000 from Standard’s fund to save lives

TWENTY groups working on the front line tackling rising youth violence have b e e n b a c ke d by the Standard’s £1 million Save London Lives fund.

Grants of up to £20,000 each, totalling £400,000, have been allocated to the charities over two years, completing the first phase of spending.

Competition was fierce, with more than 100 groups applying and the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund panel sitting to assess a shortlist compiled by The London Community Foundation, which manages the fund.

The second round, to allocate the remaining £600,000, will focus on employment as a way out of youth violence, and will be announced early next year. Successful applicants in the current round, from 11 boroughs, embrace the “public health” model of tackling violence, working with a range of services across sectors and with locally based solutions at the heart of their strategy.

They include groups that support young people and families living with trauma on crime hotspot estates.

One of them, Youth Futures on the Brandon estate in Southwark, lost three members to violence in the summer. It will be able to provide training for staff to help address trauma in young members who have been afraid to venture out onto the estate ever since.

Other groups have been given funding to run robust intervention programmes on knife crime and gang awareness in schools. Winners will also be invited to free networking and training events to help them form bonds, build resilience and learn from each other.

Our special investigation into youth violence in July had backed the public health model as the way to halt the scourge of knife and gun killings. The model has previously been used to halve the murder rate in Glasgow.

It offers young people a path out of crime by bringing to bear a holistic range of services — youth work, mental health, education, charities, police and local government — rather than just police-led enforcement.

⬤ For the full list of grant winners, visit londoncf.org.uk/partnerships/esdf