How did you keep safe when you were a child? Why I ask every podcast guest that question

Maybe you didn’t need to think about it. Maybe the rituals of your life were protected by adults and institutions around you, as they should be. Your home was warm, food was on the table, and your parents had the time and energy to play and converse with you, help with your homework and read to you before bed. You felt like you belonged at school, you had a loyal group of friends and enjoyed the protection of trusted adults and a strong community. You took part in arts, sports and social activities that gave you purpose, self-worth and a chance to express yourself. Your local area was clean and green.

Or maybe you weren’t so lucky. Maybe you were born in a country where the threat of persecution or war led you to flee. Maybe your friend was hospitalised. Smashed glass, police tape and bouquets of flowers kept reappearing on the pavement outside your front door. You felt the shame of being bullied by a romantic partner, being sent out of lessons by teachers who didn’t understand you or covering up bruises so that people didn’t ask questions. Your social media feeds kept showing you bloody video content or drawing you into arguments that made you feel angry, anxious and victimised.

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Whatever your experience, I expect that you’re bound by the same fundamental belief: that all children in Britain should be able to lead a life free from violence.

“How did you keep safe when you were a child?” is the simple but powerful question that I ask every guest of SAFE, a new podcast from the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) — the charity I work at, which finds, funds and advocates for ways of preventing violence affecting young people.

In each episode, I sit down with an expert: from youth workers and teachers to young people and community leaders to academics and researchers. I listen to their story, I ask what’s going wrong, and we try to figure out how to make it right. The first season covers a range of themes: social media, criminal exploitation, school suspensions, creative writing in prisons, youth clubs, and more. 

Too many children experience violence. The YEF’s 2025 Children, Violence and Vulnerability report, which surveyed nearly 11,000 teenagers, found that, in the past year, nearly one in five teenagers reported being a victim of violence. One in eight admitted to committing it, half witnessed it and the vast majority saw violent content online, even though only a minority of them searched for it.

As a youth worker in south London across the late-2010s, I saw firsthand how austerity, intergenerational trauma and the rise of the digital world, among other forces, led to unprecedented rates of violence, particularly involving knives. I brought my experiences working with young people in schools, youth clubs and prisons together in a story to write my book, Cut Short, which was published just after the pandemic in 2021.

Five years later, entering 2026, the story feels at once the same and very different. 

For the most extreme forms of violence, the direction of travel seems positive. The latest data shows that teen homicides in England and Wales have fallen to a decade low, mostly driven by falling knife crime: knife-related teen homicides are down 59% in 2024-2025 compared to 2023-24, from 54 to 22.

There are a few reasons this might be happening.

Firstly, I don’t want to jinx it, but our ability as a society to respond to violence is arguably getting better. Community organising, media campaigning and policymaking across the last decade have tilled the ground for growth. There is now a functional infrastructure of organisations like the YEF treating violence as a public health issue: focusing on preventing it early, rather than simply punishing it, after the fact.

Secondly, thanks to Idris Elba and others, there is now a much stronger ban on the sale and ownership of zombie knives and ninja swords. This has led to the removal of tens of thousands of weapons from our streets over the last year. This on its own is not sufficient for solving the fear that young people fundamentally feel, but it is a necessary step forward.

Thirdly, more young people are spending time online. A recent survey conducted as part of the government’s national youth strategy found that nearly half of young people aged 11-18 now spend most of their time in their bedroom. 

On the one hand, this shift might be contributing towards less teens being outside and therefore at-risk of perpetrating violence. On the other hand, it is a cause for concern and clearly bound up with more worrying trends: loneliness and isolation; exposure to hate speech, misogyny and radicalisation; rising mental health diagnoses; strained SEND services in schools; cuts to youth service budgets; reports of controlling behaviour, relationship abuse and violence against women and girls, in particular.

We face wins in some places, which should be celebrated, and losses in others, which should be tackled head-on. We need an honest, accurate and constructive conversation about where our country is headed for the next generation. 

That’s why we created SAFE: to open up the evidence about what works in practice and policy, to spotlight the inspiring individuals dedicating their lives to preventing harm and ultimately making Britain safer for everyone.

How did you keep safe when you were a child? Have a think about it – and join our movement.

Ciaran Thapar is the director of public affairs and communications at the Youth Endowment Fund.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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