Young people to receive IVE’s creative training to help reduce youth crime

IVE has been awarded a grant of £49, 671 from the Youth Endowment Fund to support young people at-risk of being drawn into violent crime through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The funding will be used to run our innovative Applied Creativity Labs online, with four groups of young people selected through a partnership with BARCA; providers of universal and targeted services for young people in Leeds, The Prince’s Trust and the West Yorkshire Police Calderdale Early Intervention Team.

IVE have been delivering Applied Creativity Labs (ACLs) to children and young people in Leeds since September 2019. During the Labs, young people receive IVE’s unique programme of creative and critical thinking training, along with support from industry experts and University researchers, empowering them to  develop their own solutions to real world challenges.

This funding will allow IVE to move this provision online to work with young people via Zoom.  Each group will decide which real-world challenge they would like to find a solution to. They will present their final idea to an Industry Panel for feedback and comment. The young people involved will develop a variety of skills as a result including: creative problem-solving; ideas generation; how to resolve situations; how to think before making final decisions; team-work and self-confidence.

The Youth Endowment Fund is an independent charitable trust set up by the Home Office. It funds, supports and evaluates projects in England and Wales which work to prevent children and young people from being drawn into violent crime.

IVE is one of 130 organisations to share part of a £6.5m grant pot from the Youth Endowment Fund to help at-risk young people impacted by COVID-19.

Sarah Mumford. Programmes Director at IVE, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this funding. It will enable us to do much needed work in partnership with BARCA and West Yorkshire Police Calderdale Early Intervention team, helping young people gain valuable creative thinking skills, behaviours and experience to draw upon that may help prevent them from being drawn into violent crime in future.”

Jon Yates, Executive Director at Youth Endowment Fund, said: “It has been too easy to forget vulnerable young people during this crisis. The pandemic has removed much of the critical support that many of them rely upon – from teachers to youth workers. This funding will help us find the best way to reach and support these young people when they most need it.”

The Youth Endowment Fund is run by Impetus, a charity focused on transforming the lives of disadvantaged young people, in partnership with the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF) and Social Investment Business. The partnership combines Impetus’ expertise of building high impact charities and programmes, EIF’s knowledge of how to intervene early to improve outcomes for children, and Social Investment Business’ experience of managing and evaluating large scale grant programmes, to create a bold new model to tackle youth offending. Find out more at: youthendowmentfund.org.uk

Find out more about our Applied Creativity Labs here. Work or live with young people? We have made our air pollution Applied Creativity Lab available online for free – download the materials and get started here.