- Local violence against women and girls initiatives to receive funding boost
- £14 million in funding will back grass roots initiatives Funding has been awarded to stop violence and abuse online, make public spaces safer and prevent harmful behaviours developing.
Promising local projects supporting women and girls by preventing violence and abuse will be scaled up through a £10 million Prevention Accelerator fund. The fund, led by UK Research and Innovation, will provide the support and funding needed for local projects to scale up and grow nationally.
This will build UK-wide capability by funding and supporting promising grassroots initiatives, partnering with government, philanthropists, and social impact investors to scale high-potential approaches into new communities.
First Secretary of State Louise Haigh said:
Violence against women and girls is a stain on our society and this government is committed to halving it within a decade.
We are backing local projects to deliver real change, ensuring new ideas are properly funded and tested to tackle abuse at its root.
This is how we put safety back in the hands of local communities, ensuring every woman and girl can live free from fear in their homes, in public spaces and online.
A further £4 million has been awarded through the Evaluation Accelerator Fund to build evidence on what stops violence and abuse happening in the first place, so that every community nationwide benefits from proven support systems faster.
This funding has been awarded for research and evaluation across a range of services, including schools intervening in teenage relationship harms, police forces strengthening responses to technology enabled harms, and communities preventing violence in public spaces. Other examples include:
- Rolling out new technology to safely respond when someone discloses abuse, so the Government understands the risks and potential of these tools.
- Identifying and interrupting relationship harm between under-16s.