For Councils & Community Safety Partnerships

Move from reacting to harm to targeting prevention.

Youth Futures Partnership brings together local intelligence, mobile youth provision, skills activity and progression pathways to help partners identify where young people need opportunity most — and deploy practical interventions directly into those communities.

The Youth Futures approach

A practical prevention cycle.

Rather than treating intelligence, youth provision and evaluation as separate activities, Youth Futures aims to connect them into one continuous model.

1

Understand

Combine appropriate local intelligence to identify hotspots, emerging risks and gaps in youth opportunity.

2

Target

Agree the community, cohort, time and type of harm or disengagement the partnership wants to address.

3

Engage

Deploy attractive provision — buses, activities, outreach and partner programmes — into the right place.

4

Progress

Connect engagement into skills, mentoring, education, training, employers and positive next steps.

5

Measure

Track participation, progression and relevant local indicators, then use the evidence to adapt future delivery.

Where we can add value

Designed around the places where prevention is difficult.

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Persistent hotspots

Locations with recurring antisocial behaviour, underage alcohol use, vaping, violence, exploitation concerns or community complaints.

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Gaps in provision

Communities where fixed youth provision is limited, inaccessible or simply not available at the times young people need it.

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Harder-to-reach groups

Young people who may not voluntarily engage with traditional services but can be reached through interests and practical activity.

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Early intervention

Situations where positive activity and trusted relationships may help prevent emerging concerns becoming entrenched.

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Opportunity inequality

Neighbourhoods where transport, cost or geography limits access to training, employers, activities and positive experiences.

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Fragmented responses

Bring partners around a shared picture so resources can complement one another rather than operating in isolation.

Harm intelligence

Build a shared picture before choosing the intervention.

No single dataset tells a council everything it needs to know. The Youth Futures concept is to combine lawful, proportionate and appropriately aggregated intelligence from partners to understand patterns by place, time and type of harm.

Potential intelligence inputs

Depending on local governance and data-sharing arrangements, insight could include community safety information, youth-service intelligence, school themes, public-health trends, resident concerns, retailer intelligence and direct youth voice.

AlcoholVapingASBViolenceDrugsExploitationAttendanceOpportunity gaps

From heatmap to decision

The important part is not creating another dashboard. Intelligence should answer operational questions: Where should provision go? When should it be there? What will attract the young people involved? Which partners need to participate? And what indicators should be watched afterwards?

Targeted delivery

Put the right intervention in the right place.

Youth Futures can combine mobile provision with existing local services rather than requiring expensive permanent infrastructure in every neighbourhood.

Mobile Youth Buses

Esports, trades, automotive, salon, STEM, food, media and other themed hubs deployed into priority locations.

Detached & Pop-up Activity

Flexible outreach and temporary provision around parks, town centres, estates, transport points and community spaces.

Skills & Employer Programmes

Bring employers and practical career experiences into communities, linking young people to realistic progression routes.

Partner-led Support

Use the engagement platform to connect young people appropriately with existing youth, health, education or specialist provision.

A partnership platform

Connect organisations around a shared outcome.

Youth Futures is strongest when it acts as an enabler between organisations rather than attempting to recreate services that already exist.

Local authorities

Youth services, public health, community safety, education, regeneration and neighbourhood teams.

Police & community safety

Local hotspot intelligence, prevention priorities and appropriate partnership activity.

Schools & colleges

Early insight, targeted engagement, careers pathways and continuity for young people.

Health partners

Public-health expertise, prevention priorities and routes into appropriate support.

Employers

Equipment, mentors, workshops, social value, work experience and apprenticeship opportunities.

Youth organisations

Trusted relationships, specialist delivery and existing community expertise.

Community groups

Local knowledge, venues, resident engagement and insight into neighbourhood needs.

Young people

Direct input into what provision is needed, what will attract participation and whether it is working.

Commissioning & outcomes

Give commissioners more than an attendance figure.

Programmes can be designed with an agreed outcome framework from the beginning so partners know what success is intended to look like.

Engagement measures

  • Young people reached
  • Repeat engagement
  • Target cohort reach
  • Session utilisation
  • Youth feedback

Progression measures

  • Skills milestones
  • Training referrals
  • Employer encounters
  • Work experience
  • Education or apprenticeship progression

Place-based measures

  • Relevant hotspot trends
  • Partner intelligence
  • Perceptions of safety
  • Changes in service demand where appropriate
  • Gaps in provision addressed
Evidence matters: Youth Futures should avoid claiming that a single intervention caused a change in crime, health or community-safety statistics where multiple factors are involved. Reporting should distinguish direct programme outcomes from wider indicators to which the intervention may have contributed.
Design a local pilot

Start with one place, one problem and a measurable response.

A Youth Futures pilot could focus on a defined neighbourhood or cohort, bring the relevant partners together, deploy targeted provision and build an evidence base before wider rollout.