Leap Confronting Conflict supports young people to gain the skills to manage conflict in their own lives and to reduce violence in their communities. Its work is focussed around young people in care, not in mainstream education, in local communities demonstrating destructive behaviour (including those in gangs), and/or caught up in the criminal justice system.

Leap runs a range of projects including: Leadership and Enterprise, a three-day self-leadership programme; Young Women’s Work for young women aged 13-21 at risk or involved with gangs; and Improving Prospects, Leap’s longest running community-based programme designed to give young people aged 15-21 an insight into the causes and consequences of conflict. By taking part in training, young people gain the practical skills and confidence to take control of the direction their lives are taking. They learn that, although conflict can be inevitable, when managed appropriately, it can be a powerful catalyst for change. 

Leap also designs training and larger programmes for other sector organisations working with young people including youth workers and prison officers, as they are often best placed to offer support when conflict arises.

It also carries research into issues facing young people in order both inform its own work and to support the development of policy and practice more widely. 

Our £225,000 grant in 2019 was for a three-year project to expand delivery of Leap’s flagship Improving Prospects education programme, which provides high-impact training and development support in deprived North London boroughs to young people struggling with destructive conflict.  

The grant is to enable Leap to deliver additional, longer, courses in partner schools, at new schools and on-site. The project will also involve a the development of a new element which will see Leap working with Pupil Referral Units to design courses and models for young people identified at risk at an earlier stage (from age 13 compared with age 15 for current programmes).