Your Choice

A £10m pan-London project aimed at reducing youth violence and helping young people to achieve their goals

Your Choice logo, which features a navigational compass as the letter O

Your Choice is a new pan-London, pro-social Violence Reduction Programme. It is delivered by all 32 London local authorities through their adolescent safeguarding teams. The Your Choice-trained practitioners work with young Londoners between 11 & 17 at risk of contextual harm, using psychologically informed, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) tools and techniques.   

The programme aims to empower young people by taking a public health approach to help break the cycle of violence and harm. Your Choice allows for delivery alongside the more systemic work that local authorities are already doing. 

You can watch our Your Choice programme launch here:

Are you a Your Choice Practitioner?

Project Goals

  • The Your Choice Programme aims to help young people focus on what matters to them and provide them with resources to achieve their goals. 
  • Together, we seek to fill a practice gap through Your Choice – by moving beyond understanding why a child may behave in a certain way to providing tools and techniques that practitioners can employ to help the child keep themselves safe.
  • Through engagement in the London Young People Study (LYPS), we aim to contribute to the evidence-base and make the case for further investment in this field of work.

Project Milestones

  • The Your Choice programme celebrated its 1-year anniversary in 2022. Since the first training session on the 6 December 2021, London’s boroughs have made incredible progress to implement Your Choice locally. 
  • 32 of London’s boroughs are delivering Your Choice and are participating in the London Young People Study (LYPS), thus, enabling a pan-London research evaluation to take place. 
  • Over 300 children and young people have been recruited into the London Young People Study Pilot. This progress reflects the huge effort by each local authority to reach target recruitment milestones for the treatment and control groups.  
  • We have heard anecdotal stories about the positive impact of the Your Choice programme from young people and their practitioners.

Partners

IFS Logo - Institute for Fiscal Studies
Youth Endowment Fund logo
Anna Freud logo - National Centre for Children and Families
VRU Logo - Text reads VRU, Mayor of London, Violence Reduction Unit

With thanks to our first phase funders, the Home Office…

Home Office logo

Contact Details

Practice Lead (Your Choice): Dr Karla Goodman

karla.goodman@londoncouncils.gov.uk

Consultant and Project Lead (Your Choice): Isabelle Gregory

isabelle.gregory@londoncouncils.gov.uk

Project Administrator: Sunniva Minsaas

sunniva.minsaas@londoncouncils.gov.uk

Governance