From Violence to Resilience: Positive Transformative Programmes to Grow Young Leaders

How can young people break out of a vicious cycle of behaviour that harms them and others? This manual outlines a transformative programme that helps young people at risk of violence, or already caught up in violence, change the way they think about themselves and their futures. The programme supports them become young leaders who make a real contribution to their community. The approaches in this manual build on 18 years of work by Leap Confronting Conflict. It is a step by step guide to the approach used successfully by Leap to develop programmes and targeted interventions with young people at risk. Part 1 provides guidance and advice on the design and development of a transformative programme. Part 2 outlines the programmes for four workshops: Leadership; Advanced Leadership; Leadership in Action, and Fear and Fashion - Tackling knife carrying and use. The manual is packed with exercises and activities to develop the leadership skills of young people. It includes full guidance notes and useful tips on how to set up and facilitate the workshops. It will be invaluable for all those working with young people at risk of violence, those managing and delivering programmes for young people, and policy makers, academics and students in the fields of youth and conflict.

Nic Fine ns a founder member of Leap Confronting Conflict. He has been a specialist youth and conflict practitioner for many years and has written a number of publications on this issue. He now lives in South Africa where he is the Director of Hearts of Men – a community mentoring organisation working with young men at risk of violence and gang activity.

Jo Broadwood is an expert on youth and community conflict, with years of experience in the design and development of programmes for young people at risk and training programmes for practitioners. She was, until 2010, part of the leadership team at Leap.