Essex Boys and Girls Clubs have been successful in the first grant round of the Youth Endowment Fund. A £200 million provision from the Home Office. This is to pilot their well-established Respect Project in new areas across England and Wales.

The Essex charity’s Respect Project, which has been run for the last 19 years across Essex, Southend and Thurrock. The project was selected as one of only 22 projects across England and Wales to help prevent youth offending.

The Respect Project uses a combination of outdoor activity and life skills to help young people in many ways. By re-engaging with their education, building resilience and confidence, and improving their mental wellbeing. This ultimately keeps them safe and less vulnerable to exploitation and criminality. The Respect Project is an early intervention approach, working closely with Ipsos MORI to evaluate its impact. In Essex nearly 4,500 young people have already benefitted from the programme.

The project will reach around 900 young people in year 9 schools across Bristol, Lancashire, Manchester, South Yorkshire and Wales. Delivered by Essex Boys and Girls Clubs local partner organisations Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Manchester, Boys and Girls Clubs of South Yorkshire, Boys and Girls Clubs of Wales, Lancashire Association of Boys and Girls Clubs and Young Bristol.

The Youth Endowment Fund is dedicated to building an evidence base to determine what works. Looking at how the support improved outcomes for children and young people. Each project will be evaluated to develop and share knowledge of the types of interventions which are most effective at preventing young people from being drawn into crime and violence.

As one of the first grantees, Essex Boys and Girls Clubs and their partners, join a diverse group of organisations in running well established early intervention programmes endorsed by the Home Office through the Youth Endowment Fund and the awarding of the grant recognises the pioneering work that Essex Boys and Girls Clubs has been running in the outdoors for the last two decades.