Your Choice

A £12.5m 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 31 London local authorities through their adolescent safeguarding teams. The Your Choice-trained practitioners work with young Londoners between 11 and 18 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. 

 

Image of Your Choice coach with young person on a bench
Extract from the ‘What is Your Choice’ video © LIIA (London Councils) 2024. All rights reserved.

Programme 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.

An ambitious evaluation

We have heard multiple anecdotal stories about the positive impact of the Your Choice programme from young people and their practitioners, such as this one:

Working with [my practitioner] really opened my eyes. I see now that who you surround yourself with, makes an image of who you are.

This ambitious programme is expected to influence national and international practice and the programme therefore requires a robust evaluation methodology to measure impact and outcomes of the approach. The chosen methodology is a Cluster Randomised Control Trial. The evaluation will continue until December 2024 with the full Efficacy report scheduled for August 2025.

The evaluation methodology is being monitored along the way to ensure the Randomised Control Trial (RCT) does not distort practice or deny access to services.

Read more about the evaluation of the Your Choice programme (the London Young People Study) by clicking this button

Are you a Your Choice Practitioner?

Programme & Evaluation Milestones

October 2023

Your Choice Pilot Report Published

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) published the findings from the pilot trial of the London Young People Study.

August 2023

The Efficacy stage of the LYPS commenced

The full-scale Efficacy trial of the London Young People Study started on the 8 August and will run until December 2024. 30 of London’s boroughs are participating.

May 2023

YEF gives go-ahead for full-scale Efficacy

The London Young People’s Study Full Efficacy Trial received go-ahead from the Youth Endowment Fund.

April 2022 – March 2023

Your Choice Pilot trial

The YEF-funded evaluation of Your Choice started in April 2022 and lasted until March 2023. Over 300 young people participated in the Pilot.

December 2021 – March 2022

Home Office phase

The Home Office funded the first phase of the Your Choice programme.

December 2021

First training session held

The first Your Choice training session was held on December 6 2021.

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 (LIIA)

karla.goodman@londoncouncils.gov.uk

Consultant and Programme Lead (Your Choice): Isabelle Gregory (LIIA)

isabelle.gregory@londoncouncils.gov.uk

Project Administrator: Mei Ho (LIIA)

Mei.ho@londoncouncils.gov.uk

Governance and funders