Violence against women and girls prevention programme

Violence Against Women and Girls Prevention Programme (up to £20,000)

Promoting Healthy and Respectful Relationships in Secondary Schools.

Finding out what works to prevent violence against young women and girls (VAWG) is a key part of delivering on YEF’s mission to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence. It is also central to the cross-government strategy “Freedom from Violence and Abuse” that was published in December 2025.

This funding round forms part of a wider YEF programme of funding, evaluation and research over the next three years on what works to prevent and respond to VAWG.

We know that supporting children and young people to develop the skillsand understanding they need to build healthy and respectful relationships is an important early step to preventing the emergence of harmful behaviours in relationships-including physical, emotional and sexual abuse in relationships, coercive or controlling behaviour, harassment and exploitation, including online and technology-facilitated abuse.

This is whythe Department for Education and the Home Office have partnered with YEFto launch this funding round.

We areseekingtofund interventions and generate robust evidence on how secondary schools can best be supported to deliver healthy relationships content, improve young people’s knowledge and attitudes towards healthy relationships and harmful behaviours, and ultimately reduce violence against women and girls. This aligns with both Pillar 1:
Prevention and early intervention in cross-government strategy on VAWG, and the Department of Education’s roll-out of revised statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum in September 2026.

Weareinvitingapplications across two strands:

Projectsthatstrengthen the confidence,skillsandcapacity of secondary school staff to deliver universal,high-quality content around healthy and respectful relationships as part of thenew Relationship, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) curriculum.

We would expect these interventions to:

• Primarily focus on providing training and support for teachers on dealing with sensitive topicsin some orall ofthe areas of Respectful Relationships, Online Safety and Awareness, Being Safe and Intimate and Romantic Relationships in theRSHEcurriculum.
• Wewillconsiderinterventionsthat cover the above but also include wider school approaches designed to strengthen school culture, leadership and systems around healthy relationships(such as the integration of healthy relationship topicsin other subjects, wider teacher training or awareness campaigns across the school).

Projectsbyexperienced,external specialist providers to deliver universal healthy relationships contentinthe new RSHE curriculumdirectlyto young people in secondary schools(some orall ofthe topics of Respectful Relationships, Online Safety and Awareness, Being Safe and Intimate and Romantic Relationships).

Applicants should have some prior experience in delivering the proposed project model. Projects must be delivered in
England, andwork with young people aged 11-16 in secondary school settings.

Please note that we are planning a further funding round in the summer that will focusonsupportingschoolswithtargeted interventionsforyoung people to respond to inappropriate and problematic behaviours around teenage relationships (prior to these reaching the threshold where intervention from other statutory agencies, such as police or social care, is required).

We will beseekingtofund and evaluate each project selected.

We’llbe prioritising projects and organisations that are able to reach enough participants and schools to support a robust impact evaluation. Please see the eligibility criteria below for more details and the application guidance for details of YEF’s evaluation approach and expectations of projects.

YEF hosted awebinar on this Objective, covering the…