Funding is available to community groups, social enterprises and non-profit organisations working in South Yorkshire who provide support to young people to stop them engaging in violent crime.
The South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit are asking for applications in to their Violence Reduction Fund 2021 from organisations who are working with young people on a range of issues.
Funding of up to £20,000 is available and applications are sought from those who are working with young people supporting the Violence Reduction Unit’s sixteen priorities.
Some of these priorities include:
- encourage safe, nurturing and stable relationships between children and their parents and caregivers,
- work to end domestic abuse,
- promote gender equality to prevent violence against women,
- support people who misuse substances to make positive choices,
- support people into employment and provide pathways to further education/re-training,
- work to change cultural and social norms that support violence
Graham Jones, Head of the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit said: “This funding has become available to us for the financial year ending March 2022. We are encouraging organisations that are working with young people up to the age of 25 years to apply.
“Due to the current situation with the coronavirus pandemic, we are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact that this will be having on our young people. We need to be working together to engage with them and provide positive role models that they can relate to.
“The funding is available to support young people and help them find a way of life that is free from violence and crime. We want to encourage them to seek activities that will nurture them and form an understanding of the positive choices they can make now, to better help their futures.
“I would encourage organisations working in some of the more deprived areas of South Yorkshire to apply. We will look favourably on applications that are working in the hot spot areas where violence is on the increase and supporting those becoming entrenched in county lines and gang culture.
“Groups working to support young people back in to mainstream education and employment are also encouraged to apply and those supporting teenagers to establish role models and find their own identities in their communities.”
The activity or projects can be existing or new projects. Core costs, staff costs and activity costs can be funded.
Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner said: “Ever since I became Police and Crime Commissioner I have been clear that we have to tackle violence, including violent crime, in two ways.
“We have to come down hard on the gangs who bring so much misery to our communities not least by drawing our younger people into criminality.
“But this enforcement action, necessary though it is, is not enough.
“We must also tackle the roots of crime and violence.
“This is what the Violence Reduction Unit is designed to do.
“We want to help those organisations who seek to promote healthy relationships within families, to steer children and young people away from harmful influences and to enable young people to find employment and a meaningful life.
“We realise that this is a critical moment in South Yorkshire after a year when employment prospects for many have worsened as a result of coronavirus.
“The sums of money we are offering are substantial and should enable worthwhile programmes and projects to be proposed, extended or continued.
“This fund is a beacon of hope in what is so often a bleak landscape.”
This round of funding closes on 28 June 2021 at 12 noon. No late admissions will be accepted. A panel will score applications and successful recipients will be notified week commencing 12 July 2021. The funding must be spent before 31 March 2022, to adhere to the terms and conditions of the grant.
Applications are now closed.
