Preventing Youth Violence: Research and Evidence Conference 2025

Last week (Tuesday 11 February), over 160 policy makers, academics and staff working to reduce serious violence attended a national learning event organised by the Thames Valley Violence Prevention Partnership and which was opened by Rt Hon Dame Diana Johnson, Minister of Crime, Policing and Fire by video address.

The VRU Learning & Evaluation Network is a community of practice working across all 22 Violence Reduction Units, with the leads for research, evaluation and evidence working to share their learning, best practice and to inform future approaches to tackling serious violence and its causes.

Each year, a national conference is held, organised by the co-chairs of the network – which includes Thames Valley Violence Prevention Partnership and the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit.

The primary objective of this year’s conference was to improve the quality and use of research and evidence-led approaches in the field of violence prevention and reduction. In addition to sharing the latest research and evaluation work, the conference sought to bring together key local and national decision makers and commissioners with those working on research and evaluation to inform future ways of working.

Resources from the conference have now been published below, to widen the reach of the learning. Use the links below to download the slide decks from the presentations and panel discussions:

VRU Conference 2025_Master Presentation for SharingDownload
Considering Procedural Justice: Anna Wendel, Peter Walker, Lewis Doyle, Simon Rotheram, Paul Quinton, Caroline Hemingway & Gary TrowsdaleDownload
Focused Deterrence: Tori Olphin, MBE, Iain Brennan, Stuart Nicholls & Antony DuffDownload
Mentoring: Charlotte Coleman, Arshna Rameswaran, Eleanor Parker & Nikiesha HenryDownload
Talking Therapies: Tom Davies, Karla Goodman, Alex Levy, Katie Bush & Phoebe CollingridgeDownload
Youth Voice and Lived Experience: Ella Burton, Zak Shariff, Paul Gray, Alex Walker, Stephanie McArdle & Georgia WatkinsonDownload

There was also a display of posters to summarise and showcase key pieces of research and evaluation work to those attending the conference. The original posters can be downloaded from the links below:

1 – Blocks Poster – GMCA – Louis RichardsDownload
2 – CAPVA poster – LJM Uni_Merseyside VRPDownload
3 -Detached Youth Work – Essex VVU – Ellie FrostDownload
4 – Influential Factors – West Yorkshire VRP – Lydia IsherwoodDownload
5 – Intersection of Healthcare & Crime Data – GMCA – Louis RichardsDownload
6 – LSIM Research – London’s VRUDownload
7 – MyEnds Eval – London’s VRUDownload
8 – Loughborough University – Nottingham Sports DiversionDownload
9 – My Tomorrow Campaign – West Midlands VRP_Uni of Wolv – Amy FennDownload
10 – NEET to EET Mentoring RER – Thames Valley VPP – Jade StevensDownload
11 – NHS Violence Prevention Teams – Wales VPU – Alex WalkerDownload
12 – Nott Trent Uni – First Time entrantsDownload
13 – Online Harms – West Yorkshire VRP – Lydia IsherwoodDownload
14 -Partnerships for Violence Prevention – Wales VPU – Alex WalkerDownload
16 – ReRoute Programme – Essex VVU – Ellie FrostDownload
17 – Research Map – College of Policing – Chris SirrsDownload
18 – Research Project Lifecycle – Thames Valley VPP – Tori OlphinDownload
19 – Schools Navigators – Thames Valley VPP – Tori OlphinDownload
20 – South Yorkshire – Custody NavDownload
21 – Thames Valley – Focused Deterrence Academic Poster – PDFDownload
22 – Virtual Decisions – VRDownload