£5 million fund to deter young people from gang and knife crime

22 Oct 2018 01:59 PM

Families across the country who are vulnerable to the devastating effects of knife crime and gang culture are set to receive more support from a new fund.

Families across the country who are vulnerable to the devastating effects of knife crime and gang culture are set to receive more support from a new £5 million fund announced recently (20 October 2018).

The Supporting Families Against Youth Crime fund will allow keyworkers, community groups, teachers and other professionals working with children and young people to intervene earlier to help them develop the personal resilience to withstand peer pressure and make their own positive life choices.

It will also support more in-depth work with parents and carers to help them fully understand the risk factors and dangers of their children becoming drawn into gang crime.

Councils will be able to bid for funding to bolster their response to youth violence and gangs in their local area, as part of their Troubled Families programme.

The fund builds on the government’s wider support available to tackle serious violence which includes a £22 million Early Intervention Youth Fund and a £1.5 million Anti-Knife Crime Community Fund.

Communities Secretary, Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP, recently said:

Knife crime and gang violence can devastate the lives of young people, families and their communities.

Carrying knives must never become normal behaviour and we need to change the culture among many young people.

Early intervention and prevention is vital to tackling violence. That is why I am announcing £5 million to support initiatives which are helping young people to take a positive direction in life.

The government has committed £920 million to the Troubled Families Programme, which aims to achieve significant and sustained improvement for up to 400,000 families with multiple high-cost problems by 2020. The programme champions working with the whole family, ensuring they receive coordinated support from services working together to solve their problems as early as possible.

The programme which works with the whole family has achieved significant progress with:

The fund will come into effect immediately, supporting the government’s ‘public health’ approach to tackling the root causes of serious violence underpinned by the Serious Violence Strategy. This includes new measures recently announced by the Home Secretary:

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