Help young people live safely and successfully in our communities

What’s the project?

We’re looking for young people aged 14-21 to find out what can help young people affected by school exclusions to be protected from serious youth violence.

Help us to help other young people to live safely and successfully in our communities.

The PAC project

The Peer Action Collective (PAC) is a £12.7 million programme, which aims to give young people the chance to make their communities safer, fairer places to live. It is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, the #iwill Fund (a joint investment between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport) and the Co-op Group.

PAC is a ground-breaking network of peer researchers; social action leads and changemakers. The network is driven by young people with lived experience of violence finding out what needs to happen to make their area a better place to live, and turning these insights into action. This will include work such as influencing school practices, improving local mental health services, co-producing violence reduction strategies or supporting more young people into employment.

McPin and the Peace Alliance will work together as the Delivery Partners in London (2023-2025). Our work aims to further grow youth lived experience leadership, undertake research driven by experiential knowledge, and carry out social action that results in on-the-ground change in Haringey. We are excited to work together and learn from each organisation’s different expertise.

Find out more about the project

Find out more

Many of us have experienced or witnessed serious youth violence, and we suspect that school exclusions can be part of the pathway leading to young people becoming involved. But what can help?

We have decided to research these topics to uncover what changes young people need to see.

We aim to document young people’s perspectives on youth violence and school exclusions first hand – to explore where things are going right or wrong for teenagers, and where we can improve support.

Ultimately, we want to reduce violent crime, to support safer futures for our generation.

We’re part of The Peer Action Collective (PAC) – a movement of 10 to 25-year olds across England and Wales who want to help young people live lives free from violence.

We aim bring young people together, listening to what you have to say (including through this research) and turn what we learn into action. PAC is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, the #iwill Fund and the Co-op Group.

Specifically, we’re the London Delivery Partner for PAC. We’re a collaborative team based at the McPin Foundation and Peace Alliance in North London.

We’re a mix of teenagers, young adults, community leaders, and researchers, aiming to platform young people’s priorities in addressing youth violence.

Any young people living in London and the South East of England, who are aged 10 to 20 years, can take part in this research.

We want to hear directly from young people affected by or at risk of school exclusions and youth violence.

We want to document your opinions and views about what support can help young people escape from or avoid becoming involved in violence.

We want to hear from you if:

You have experience and knowledge of school exclusions/suspensions and serious youth violence
Can join a 1 hour interview or focus group with us in Haringey or on the phone, in April or May 2024

Do I have to take part?

Taking part in this research is voluntary, you do not have to take part. It will not affect you if you decide you don’t want to take part.

If you decide to take part but decide later on (for example during or after our conversation) that you’d like to change your mind, you can do this with no impact on you.

Any information you decide to share will be kept confidential.

Taking part would involve you sharing your perspectives securely with trained young people on our team, through one of the following routes:

a private interview
a small group discussion with other young people
a bigger group workshop with other young people
an online survey.

If you decide to sign up, you will be asked to sign a consent form to confirm that you are happy to take part. If you are under 16, you will need also to ask your parent or guardian for permission to take part.

If you or your parent or guardian have questions, please ask us as many as you like.

If you would be happy to, we would also like you to complete an additional confidential form where we ask for information about you (for example your age, gender and ethnicity).

This will help us to understand the different experiences different groups of young people have, and will help us to convince others to make changes based on our research – as we will have information from lots of different young people.

After signing the consent form, you will be invited to take part in either an interview, discussion group, workshop, or online survey, where you will be asked a set of questions for maximum 90 minutes.

If you join a focus group or interview, you will get a £30 voucher for your time.

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