PAC moves into a new two-year chapter shaped by young people’s priorities 

This July, the Peer Action Collective (PAC) welcomed a new cohort of Delivery Partners to recruit, host and support four PAC teams between 2025–2027. PAC is a youth-led programme that empowers young people to lead research and drive social action in communities affected by violence. Since its inception, PAC has engaged over 12,000 young people, putting those with lived experience at the forefront of designing peer research projects and creating change based on their findings. 

Sue Ormiston, Head of Funding for the #iwill Fund at The National Lottery Community Fund, shares: 

We’re proud to support the Peer Action Collective through the #iwill Fund. By empowering young people to lead research and drive change in their communities, PAC is helping to build a safer and fairer future for all. This aligns closely with our mission to help children and young people thrive and ensure their voices are heard. We’ve seen first-hand how those involved in PAC have developed valuable social and emotional skills, with many going on to further youth social action, education and employment.

Themes and delivery partners

Over the next two years, PAC will be focusing on three areas that can shape how violence is experienced and understood: mental health, policing, and children’s services. The Delivery Partners root this work in practice, bringing research, social action and youth engagement expertise, alongside deep knowledge of their communities. Young people aged 16-25 will be employed by Delivery Partners as PAC Leads and will shape their projects with other young people in their communities.

Ciaran Thapar, Director of External Affairs and Youth Understanding at The Youth Endowment Fund, explains: 

At YEF, we know that mental health, policing, and children’s services are critical areas to understand if we want to prevent violence and support young people affected by it. In this next phase of PAC, young people will lead research and, alongside Delivery Partners with strong community ties, turn what they learn into change. The evidence they produce will feed into YEF’s guidance for practitioners and system leaders, helping ensure recommendations for policy and practice reflect the realities young people experience.

Mental health

Two teams will work in London to explore what kinds of mental health support young people affected by violence say they need, and how accessible and culturally relevant that support feels. 

High Trees Community Development Trust will return as a PAC partner, working alongside Lambeth-based organisations Juvenis and IRMO. They have this to say about their involvement in the programme: 

High Trees are absolutely thrilled to join PAC again. For the last four years, the Lambeth Peer Action Collective had heard from hundreds of young people about the devastating effect violence has on their mental health and well-being. We’re excited that this two-year project will not only help us to better understand the kind of support they need, but more importantly take youth-led action to ensure they get it.

Abdul, a newly recruited PAC Lead, shares: 

I firmly believe in empowering people to be counted, especially those whose voices are typically muffled, and I am motivated by the opportunity to cause those voices to count by turning them into tangible, real action.

Raheel, another PAC Lead, adds: 

I believe using our voices as young people is the way to ensure we are empowered and have access to the correct tools to shape the future we are deserving of as young people. This role enables me to work with others on the same mission.

Coffee Afrik CIC will work alongside Queen Mary University in Tower Hamlets. Francesca, Systems and Governance Lead at Coffee Afrik, shares more about what they are working towards: 

Through the Peer Action Collective, young people in Tower Hamlets are leading the work to build justice and change. Coffee Afrik CIC is proud to stand alongside them as they organise, research and act from their lived experience and collective power. Together, we’ll co-create community-led data, evidence, and action to challenge and transform the systems that perpetuate direct and structural violence against Black and Brown communities. 

With our support, alongside allies at Queen Mary University London, young people will shape a justice-led programme, grounded in decolonial and liberatory frameworks, which will actively resist structural and racial violence at every stage.

Policing

The Violence Reduction Network, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland in partnership with Young Leicestershire, Leicestershire Police, St Matthews Big Local and Team Hub, will investigate young people’s experiences of policing. Their work will look closely at trust, safety and the everyday interactions that shape how young people affected by violence and crime view the role of the police in their lives.

Grace Strong, the Director of the Leicester VRN, shares: 

We are delighted and proud to be a partner in the national Peer Action Collective programme. Policing matters to our children and young people and we are delighted to be supporting them to undertake research and social action projects which will create impactful change for them and our communities.

Levi, the PAC Youth Action Lead for the project explains: 

I am excited to be part of this project and empower young people who have faced challenging situations to create positive change within their communities.

Kymani, a PAC Lead, shares their vision for PAC: 

I am excited to see how a group of young people can motivate change in society and influence my peers that police are just like us.

Children’s Services

Pure Insight, based in Cheshire and Greater Manchester, will focus on young people with experience of the care system. Their research and social action will explore how support structures can better protect young people from involvement in violence, rooted in what young people say would help them feel safe and supported. Pure Insight share why this project matters to them: 

Care leavers’ lives are not always like other young peoples’ lives, and to have YEF commissioning this work specifically looking at their experiences, through their eyes, is significant, and part Pure Insight’s fundamental aims to amplify voices.

So much is done ‘to’ people who are care experienced. This project is done ‘with’. Shaped and delivered by them, it’s an opportunity to document and report on what contributes to care experienced peoples’ interactions with violence and crime, make change happen as well as giving the team skills, agency and development as workers and leaders.

Harriet, Research Lead at Pure Insight, adds: 

I’m really excited to be a part of a programme that values young people’s lived experiences and puts them at the heart of the project. Our young people have just completed their first week and the energy in the room is incredible. They have big ideas and we feel that we’re really going to make some positive and meaningful change.

Why this work matters

Young people affected by violence often move through systems that were not designed with their say. When they lead research, it can reveal how those systems feel and function for them, giving a more accurate and honest understanding of their experiences, where change is needed, and the solutions they want to see.

This new phase of PAC gives young people the time and backing to continue building evidence, shaping responses and leading social action projects rooted in their own experiences. With Delivery Partners who hold community trust and expertise, the findings emerging from PAC will have a clear path to influence real change on a local and national level. 

Over the next two years, PAC will continue to create space for young people’s leadership to shape conversations about violence, wellbeing and safety. The aim is not only to understand the challenges but to drive forward solutions created with and for young people. 

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This iteration of PAC is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) and the #iwill Fund (a joint investment between The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport). In earlier phases, PAC was supported by the Youth Endowment Fund, the #iwill Fund and the Co-op Group. The Young Foundation is PAC’s National Partner.