England Boxing partner with Youth Endowment Fund for Groundbreaking Crime Prevention Programme

As part of a significant national research project, England Boxing will embark on an ambitious 2-year crime prevention programme alongside – and with thanks to £1.7m funding from – the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF).

The programme aims to engage over 3,200 young people at risk of offending with 40 England Boxing and Welsh Boxing affiliated clubs and local gyms to help divert them from a life of crime.

The Youth Endowment Fund exists to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence. Their mission is to find out what works to keep children safe and build a movement to put this knowledge into practice. For more information on this, please click here.

England Boxing (EB) is excited to work with YEF and the Ending Youth Violence Lab (at the Behavioural Insights Team) to establish a robust piece of research and evidence to explore whether and how involvement in amateur boxing can support young people to move away from crime and violent offending.

The programme has a specific focus on Ethnically Diverse Communities (EDC), with 30% of participants involved set to come from EDC backgrounds, enabling EB to reach some of the most under-represented people in society and make huge strides towards achieving several of its key strategic goals.

England Boxing’s Head of Operations, Avoen Perryman, explained: “We truly believe that this programme has the potential to prove once and for all what we and our members have been saying for decades: that boxing has a unique power and ability to prevent crime.”

“With thanks to the YEF, the programme will be the largest investment into England Boxing outside of Sport England, and I struggle to think of a better cause. There are so many layers of benefit to our members, clubs and society through this programme, it’s hard to give it the justice it deserves!”

“Over the next two years, EB will provide funding, equipment and training to 40 member clubs to deliver in-house sessions and community engagement events for young people at risk of offending. With our partners and friends at Coach Core and Lifetime Training, we will expand our award-winning EB Community Apprenticeship to six more lucky young people to gain meaningful employment and kick-start their careers whilst helping others. And, most importantly, our partners at the Lab will produce a robust and independent research report that EB and our clubs can use for years to come, to truly evidence the impact of community boxing on diverting young offenders.”

“Fundamentally, this programme has been developed by clubs, for clubs. I’d like to thank all of the England Boxing & Welsh Boxing clubs for their input over the last six months to co-design the programme – their invaluable experience at working with crime prevention projects has helped to shape a robust and detailed plan for a project that we believe will help to inspire and transform the lives of thousands of young people from under-represented communities.”

“Our thanks, of course, also to YEF for supporting us and sharing our vision to discover what works for crime prevention and boxing, as well as to the Lab for their hard work and efforts to shape a detailed and robust evaluation plan. And thanks, lastly, to our friends at Welsh Boxing for being part of this project in the largest community collaboration our National Governing Bodies have partnered in.”

England Boxing will be recruiting for several key roles in the coming days and weeks to help deliver this exciting programme – if you’re inspired to be part of this project, please keep a lookout on our website and social media.

Youth Endowment Fund Assistant Director of Impact, Programmes and Partnerships, Dr Mollie Bourne, said: “The Youth Endowment Fund is excited to be partnering with England Boxing and the Ending Youth Violence Lab to continue building evidence on what works to reduce serious youth violence.

Boxing is a popular and accessible sport, but there’s still limited robust evidence about its impact on reducing offending. Through this partnership, we’re looking forward to strengthening the evidence base and building on the important work already being delivered by England Boxing.