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Welcome to the 17th Edition of our magazine featuring new research as well as providing exposure to some the wider and more interesting developments in youth empowerment. As usual it contains a mix of the academic, pracademic, and lived experience. It also provides greater exposure to the day to day work being done across our communities to help our young people to live the best lives they can.
Good News
FKCL were delighted to receive an award this year as the Best Non-Profit organisation (UK) for 2025 from Acquisition International. Whilst I readily acknowledge FCKL is a very small organisation, and whilst we only concentrate of providing information, research, updates and signposting for young people, rather than working with them directly, our value is now well recognised, and our growing reach has been heartening. Web Analytics show that in every year of operation since 2021, the number of people who use our resources has grown expontentially.
As mentioned in our last edition, FKCL has been instrumental in inspiring collaboration with Cleveland's Unit for the Reduction of Violence through its longstanding relationship with our partners at Sheffield Hallam University. Workstreams are underway with the Cleveland police, in collaboration with the University’s Institute of Law and Justice. In addition, our next edition in January will feature the results of research by students and academics from the Institute into how governments can more effectively invest to save, and inspire the potential power of social impact to reduce youth violence. FKCL will work closely with them on this exciting project.
More Important Good News and Renewed Hope
September 2025 has brought some highly positive news showing that violent crime has reduced in all London boroughs, including some of those who in the past have shown a highly concerning number of injuries. This is now much more than a statistical blip, and all of us need to redouble our efforts to continue bringing the level of such injuries down. The Met Police, and the London Violence Reduction Unit are rightly among those organisations which must receive considerable credit for this. But much more here needs to be said. It is your money that funds and enables such efforts, and the value of that contribution has proved itself. But the statistics do not reveal the important and daily contribution to this work by those across London who are not paid for this work, do not receive public funds to support the work they do, and yet have made a huge, and often unrecognised contribution to reducing the level of violence and changing lives. It is often small donations from members of the public that enable their work, or social impact funding provided by the commitment of local businesses and bigger corporations. Those who make these enlightened contributions, both financial and as volunteers, often beyond the glare of publicity, are the unsung heroes which we also seek to recognise though the wide spectrum of work that FKCL seeks to make better known. Some of these are partners in the work we do, but there are so many more. We use our reach to champion such efforts through our website, and by regularly sharing good news and stories of hope through our social media.
So what’s in this Edition?
Eliza Rebeiro, CEO of Lives Not Knives knows what she is talking about. She speaks about making, prevention mandatory, and consistent form of education in every school. Knife crime isn’t just about gangs or knives, but also about poverty, trauma, inequality, and children who don’t feel like they have a future. She proposes a solution.
The ever-excellent Professor Stan Gilmour deals with another aspect of that same theme when invited us to ask, instead of why certain young people carry knives, we do not examine how institutional arrangements systematically create biographical trajectories that make knife carrying appear rational or inevitable. It starts so much earlier than we might think, and it is avoidable.
Professor Eddie Kane, Director Centre for Health and Justice Institute of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham takes this theme further and makes some evidence based and highly practical suggestions. He draws on research that indicates that some existing methodology may not be the most effective way to target resources, and that the focus should be at a much more granular level that better targets interventions and investments into the areas where they will have most impact.
Rachael Box, founder of the well-established and VRU funded Local Village Network is a prime example of commitment and experience in action. The work they do at LVN is well recognised. Here she calls on policymakers, schools, and businesses to embed network building as a standard part of youth development. Just as literacy and numeracy are seen as essential, so too should access to networks and role models.
Junior Smart, Business Development Management and Founder of St Giles’ SOS Project, uses deep personal experience and the experience gained by the work of the St Giles Trust to highlight systemic failings that create avoidable problems. Feeding into the narrative that so many of our authors write about, he asks us why when never run hospitals or schools on short-term contracts, we choose to do it with youth services. He tells us how we can build trust and shows us how real impact comes when that credibility is backed by training, professional standards, and long-term support.
Ignatius Terance-Smith is among much else, the Director of Community Engagement of Make It Stop Campaign. He is also the father of five children. He speaks about the work he does in Advocacy for families in crisis, and though mental health and trauma support. He mentions the practical help they give in navigating housing, benefits, and safety concerns. Their work also extends to Youth mentoring and diversion programmes and giving long-term support to families. Here, he uses this experience and the stories of those who have suffered, by highlighting his groundbreaking new film ‘Silent’. You can read about it and access the trailer directly through his article. Take a look.
Randeep Lall is a voice that really needs to be heard and the work he does to help young and old is beyond belief. I urge your support. He is the founder and motivator behind NishkamSwat, the organisation that serves nearly 5,000 hot meals to the homeless, hungry, and vulnerable across the UK a week. This month, he writes for our magazine. His understanding of the dangers faced by young people comes from speaking to them at the critical moment when they are most vulnerable. His insight into the problems they face is massive and his personal commitment to improving their lives is legendary. I am proud to count him as a friend.
Finally, returning to the theme of biographical trajectories addressed by Professor Stan Gilmour, we have a moving account of how someone with the severe disadvantage of mental affliction has managed to turn his own life around. Martin K. Sullivan is the subject of an article from the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS . As well as being an exemplar for this NHS Foundation Trust, where he now works as a health therapist, he founded the MK Mind Rewind Project (see more on his advertisement page in this magazine), He now makes a huge contribution to the lives of others. DO read this.
So, do enjoy this edition. There is so much learn and much to think about here. Have you got something to say too, and the evidence to back it. If you do, why not consider submitting and article, and we can talk?
Bruce Houlder, Founder of Fighting Knife Crime London
www.fightingknifecrime.london
