Youth Empowerment Scheme

The scheme, delivered by the Community Foundation for Merseyside (CFM) in partnership with the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside (PCC) and the Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP), is targeted at community projects that offer diversionary activities- particular those that include arts, culture and sports to support young people aged under 25 years who may be more vulnerable to experiencing violence and at risk of anti-social behaviour. This could be due to a lack of self-esteem, experiencing challenges at home, they may live in a community where drugs and alcohol are prevalent, or the community may lack infrastructure and accessible services. All these factors are recognised as increasing vulnerability to experiencing violence and/or exploitation.

Applications can be considered from all areas within Merseyside (Halton is not eligible as this falls under Cheshire PCC) and we encourage applications from areas suffering of high crime and ASB.

The grants panel are keen for organisations to include capacity building costs for your organisation and would encourage consortium/partnership applications that will allow groups to work together (although this is not a requirement). The primary focus of the scheme is community provision and out of school hours engagement.

Interventions/programmes delivered must fall into one of the following types:

• Prevention - Awareness-raising or psycho-social education programmes


• Early Intervention - Developmental and diversionary youth outreach activities and programmes


• Therapeutic - Tailored interventions and programmes


• Desistence - Programmes which aim to cease offending or reoffending


Please note that funding must be spent in full by 31^st March 2025 and must include an element of youth engagement during the summer school holidays and October half-term/Halloween/bonfire night period.

The Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership receives government funding to identify and support those areas which have the greatest need and impact (in terms of demand upon blue light services). This is based on localised data, using several datasets held within the Trauma & Injury Intelligence Group (TIIG) Data Hub. The datasets include information relating to Serious Violence offences (Merseyside Police), Deliberate and Preliminary Fires (Merseyside Fire and Rescue), Ambulance call-outs (North West Ambulance Service), Attendance to Emergency Departments (Merseyside Emergency Departments),Pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) Support, Pupils eligible for free school meals, Suspensions & Persistent absences (Department for Education), Index of Multiple Deprivation (Gov.uk).

Based on this data, we encourage proposals for programmes and projects based as follows, A wide range of arts, culture and sports engagement and prevention activities that meet the below target outcomes can be considered:

• Increased participation of young people in arts, cultural and sports activities


• Increased engagement with young people which is sustainable beyond the funding period


• Improved reported mental health and wellbeing of young people (including anger management)


• Increased perception of personal safety amongst the young people involved


• Improved social, emotional, and behavioural skills


• Improved awareness of the impact of violent crime, particularly knife crime, and the signs and dangers of child criminal exploitation


• Improved aspirations of young people


• Voices of young people and communities being embedded within the organisation


• Increased opportunities for young people


For further information drop in to see us at the workshop!
Tuesday 28th May
Kirkdale Fire Station (L20 8EQ)
10:00am - 12:00pm

Staff from Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership , Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner, and Community Foundation for Merseyside will be available to answer any questions you may have about the scheme, Please note, to ensure that delivery aligns with the PCC and MVRPs strategic priorities, there will be a mandatory requirement for all successful organisations to attend a trauma informed awareness session to provide staff with an overview of the following six trauma informed core principles in settings.

• Understanding Trauma and Stress


• Compassion and Dependability


• Cultural Humility and Responsiveness


• Safety and Stability


• Collaboration and Empowerment


• Resilience and Recovery


Capacity Building:

This scheme is keen to support organisational and people development in addition to project and service delivery; therefore, part of the grant requested can include capacity building costs for your organisation. In the main, this is dependent on your organisation's needs and the application form will ask for information on this. Please note that trauma informed awareness training will be provided free of charge as part of the grant so please do not request costs for this in the budget. Capacity building could also include staff and volunteer training, strategy/leadership development, financial planning, marketing development.

Tailored capacity building support/training may be offered through a third party provider or by your local infrastructure organisation such as One Knowsley, Halton & St Helens VCA, Liverpool CVS, Sefton CVS, Wirral CVS. We would recommend contacting them to discuss before requesting costs for this in your grant application budget.

Evaluation:

Please note that if the scheme will be evaluated by a third party, it will be a condition of grant that successful applicants will engage with the evaluator.

Who can apply?

Constituted voluntary, community and faith organisations, community sports clubs, registered charities, CIC's (Limited by Guarantee).

What cannot be funded?

• Individuals


• Organisations with fewer than three unrelated trustees or directors or management committee members


• Projects and activities classed as a statutory responsibility


• Private Businesses or CICs limited by shares


• Retrospective funding


• Politically connected or exclusively religious activities
  
  The PCC and MVRP are extremely keen to involve the community, particularly young people (under 25yrs), in this process to ensure that young people are central to the provision and youth-directed provision is favoured where possible. Applications should therefore include some evidence of young people being involved in the co-production, co-design, or co-evaluation of programmes/projects.