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Services to support children and young adults affected by violence & exploitation: London Gang Exit, Empower and Rescue & Response

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Publication type: General

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The Mayor has always been committed to ensuring London is a place where children and young people feel safe and are safe. To support the Mayor’s commitment, MOPAC has provided over £22 million of funding between 2016 and 2024 for programmes that have provided specialist support to children and young adults impacted by violence and exploitation. These programmes comprised London Gang Exit (LGE), Empower, and the Rescue & Response county lines service. Together, these programmes supported over 2,750 young Londoners to move forward positively in their lives, helping them to reduce their risk of victimisation and/or violent behaviours.

In March 2024, the Mayor further announced an investment of £15.6 million funding for the new London Children and Young People Violence & Exploitation Support Service (VESS). This service, delivered by an alliance of Safer London, St Giles Trust, New Horizon Youth Centre, Anna Freud, and MOPAC, is the successor to LGE, Empower, and Rescue & Response: it will build upon the foundations and learning of these three programmes, and will continue to deliver specialist and holistic support to children and young adults impacted by violence and exploitation. This includes the harms of serious violence impacting children and young adults, serious group offending, county lines exploitation, and sexual exploitation.

By bringing these successful models of intervention together, the service seeks to benefit more young Londoners than ever. The new London Violence & Exploitation Support Service launched in June 2024 and further information can be found here: Supporting Victims and Witnesses | London City Hall.

 

London Gang Exit (LGE)

A key focus of the Mayor’s first Police and Crime Plan 2017-2021 was the prevalence and severity of serious violence involving children and young adults, including knife crime and homicide, and the role that gangs play in this. It was in this context that London Gang Exit (LGE) was developed, with the aim of reducing the number of young adults affected by violence and reducing the harm caused by gang-related activity.

Originally jointly commissioned by MOPAC and the London Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC), MOPAC invested over £10million in LGE between February 2016 and June 2024. Over this time, the programme provided advocacy, specialist one-to-one support and practical tools to over 1,000 young Londoners affected by serious youth violence and serious group offending, helping them to move onto a more positive path. This holistic support tackled each of the key drivers of involvement in serious youth or group violence, including mental health support, employment support, family support, housing advocacy and specialist support for girls and young women.

The programme was delivered by Safer London in partnership with Catch-22, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and, until late 2020, the London Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC).

Key successes of LGE include:

  • A significant reduction in the proportion of young adults supported by LGE who committed a violent offence in the 24 months after starting the programme, compared to before;
  • Statistically significant decreases in victimisation of young adults in the 12 months following support from LGE compared to before;

In the final year of delivery 2023/24:

  • 82% of programme participants had a reduction in being affected by violence;
  • 77% of programme participants engaged in activity to address offending behaviour and reported a reduction in offending;
  • 84% of those requiring support reported an improvement in relationships.

MOPAC’s Evidence & Insight unit has produced several reports on LGE, which provide further insight into the impact of the programme:

 

Empower

Empower supported girls, young women, and trans and non-binary children and young adults who were the victim of, or at risk of, sexual exploitation, typically in the context of gang-association. The programme delivered one-to-one casework, group activity, family casework, professional training, and consultation for professionals.

MOPAC invested almost £4million in the Empower programme between 2014 and 2024. Over this time, the programme supported around 100 children and young adults every year, consulted on additional 1,329 cases and trained almost 4,500 professionals, mostly from the health and education sector.

The programme was delivered by Safer London, together with the Women and Girls Network.

 

Rescue & Response

Rescue & Response launched in 2018 and was developed between MOPAC and London’s local authorities in response to the exploitation of young Londoners by county lines drug distribution networks. At the time, county lines was still an emerging and relatively undefined issue, but it was recognised as a driver of violence and criminal exploitation, particularly in the context of London being a major exporter of illegal drugs. Rescue & Response represented the first regional response to the exploitation of children and young adults through county lines activity. The programme had three key functions:

  • Providing intensive one-to-one support for children and young adults, including a ‘Rescue’ service, and specific gendered support for girls and young women;
  • Ongoing identification of children and young adults made vulnerable to county lines and the development of London county lines intelligence picture; and
  • Providing training to professionals to encourage the recognition and reporting of county lines, as well as sharing good practice to shape policy and process.

First commissioned through funding ringfenced from the London Crime Prevention Fund, MOPAC invested over £9million in Rescue & Response between 2018 and 2024, with the service engaging with over 750 young Londoners who were vulnerable to exploitation through county lines drug distribution networks.

The programme was delivered through a partnership of voluntary, community and social organisations and statutory agencies: the London Borough of Brent coordinated the programme as the lead London local authority, with support and training delivered by St Giles Trust, Safer London and Abianda.

Of the children and young adults who engaged with the programme:

  • 73% reduced or ceased their county lines involvement;
  • The proportion of those not in employment, education or training (NEET) reduced from 62% to 28%;
  • 70% reported feeling safer;
  • 60% reported increased resilience.

Each year, the delivery partners carried out a strategic assessment of the programme and county lines activity linked to London. These can be found below:

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