Queen's University Belfast has launched a brand-new Centre dedicated to preventing youth violence and safeguarding vulnerable young people and children across Northern Ireland.

The Centre for Evidence-Based Youth Services at Queen's is established in partnership with the Education Authority for Northern Ireland. It represents the first initiative of its kind locally, and one of only a few on a global scale, to place youth services directly at the centre of academic research and knowledge translation regarding harm reduction and violence prevention.

Across numerous communities, youth services are operating in increasingly complex settings that are impacted by trauma, inequality, violence, and other forms of harm. The new Centre will unite frontline practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to reinforce early intervention and prevention, enabling services to react more effectively to the requirements of young people.

Dr Colm Walsh, Co-Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Youth Services at Queen's, remarked: "This marks a significant step in how the needs of young people in Northern Ireland are understood and how youth services are designed to address those needs.

"Our research shows that almost one in five adults in Northern Ireland experienced four or more significant adverse experiences during childhood. That threshold is commonly associated with significantly poorer life outcomes in adulthood, including mental ill-health, addiction, unemployment, homelessness, and involvement in violence, either as a victim or perpetrator.

"For too long, society has reacted to violence, trauma, and exploitation after harm occurs. This Centre exists to shift the focus upstream, using evidence to prevent harm before it happens." Richard Pengelly, Chief Executive of the Education Authority for Northern Ireland, said: "The launch of the Centre for Evidence-Based Youth Services at Queen's is an exciting development. By bringing together research, data and the real-world experience of frontline practitioners, the Centre will help us understand far more clearly where youth violence and child exploitation are happening and crucially, spot the warning signs earlier.

"That means better, faster support for the children and young people who need it most. It also means organisations working in this space will have stronger evidence to draw on when developing and refining their approaches, with quicker evaluation of what's actually making a difference on the ground.

"This is exactly the kind of joined-up thinking that can drive meaningful, lasting change for young people's lives."

The Centre will merge frontline expertise, data, and research to gain a clearer understanding of where child exploitation and youth violence are taking place, pinpoint risks at an earlier stage, and assist in designing practical solutions to enhance outcomes for children and young people. Furthermore, it will facilitate the faster evaluation of interventions and programmes, helping organisations identify successful methods and adapt more quickly to new challenges.

Arlene Kee, Co-Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Youth Services at Queen's and Director for Youth Services at the Education Authority for Northern Ireland, commented: "This partnership isn't about adding an academic layer on top of youth work – it's about deepening our understanding of it. It gives us a way to properly explore need, to test assumptions, and to build a stronger evidence base around what we see every day in practice."