VRU - Expert Partner for Youth Digital Safety in London

The London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) is undertaking a virtual market engagement exercise on Monday 29th June 2026 at 3PM, via MS Teams, to inform the commissioning of an Expert Partner for Youth Digital Safety in London.

The London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), hosted within the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), pioneers a partnership-based public health approach to tackling violence rooted in prevention and early intervention. Since 2019, the VRU has invested in over 550,000 targeted interventions for young people across London.

The VRU invests in interventions at critical moments to keep young people safe in and out of school and at the key touchpoints that influence a young person’s journey; early years and families, education, positive opportunities, youth work, and communities and place.

In London, working in partnership, we bring together services at a local level to better coordinate delivery of prevention. We build and support effective partnerships with government, local authorities, the NHS, education services, and the police. Our strength is in connection to London’s diverse communities and young people. We’ve made embedding the voice of young people, practitioner and communities a critical part of our approach and decision-making.

You can read the VRU's strategy on our website and view the VRU’s outcomes framework, which measures our impact.

Background

The VRU recognises that the rapid proliferation of online platforms and technologies has created new challenges and opportunities for young people. Online spaces can provide connection, creativity, learning and participation, but they can also expose children and young people to harmful content, exploitation, misogyny, harassment and coercion, and exacerbate conflict.

The boundaries between online and offline life are increasingly blurred. There remains a significant gap between young people’s lived experiences of the online world and the systems, policies and services designed to support them. As digital risks evolve rapidly, evidence, insight and responses across the sector have struggled to keep pace.

The Mayor's Violence Reduction Unit is seeking to engage with the market in advance of a forthcoming procurement opportunity to appoint an Expert Partner for Youth Digital Safety in London to support and develop the VRU’s strategic approach to youth digital safety in London. This commission will ensure evidence and insight, youth voice, policy, learning, co-design are translated into stronger programme design, delivery, practice and strategic influence.

The Expert Partner will sit across the VRU’s wider youth digital safety programme. At the time of commissioning, this wider programme is expected to include:

•Trusted Adult Training – specialist support for practitioners working with children and young people

•Digital Youth Work Pilots – innovative approaches to digital youth work and digital engagement

•Local Authority Test-and-Learn Pilots – local approaches to strengthen safeguarding and system responses to online harms.

The VRU wants to build on its existing learning and develop a more mature regional model for coordinating learning, policy and practice on online harms. This creates an opportunity for London to appoint an expert partner that strengthens local systems and place-based approaches, supports frontline services and practitioners, supporting regional and metropolitan approaches and leads the way nationally in developing an evidence-led, youth-centred approach to preventing and tackling online harms.

Description of the service

The successful provider(s), which can be a partnership or consortium bid with a lead provider, will act as a strategic insight, learning partner, youth voice and practice translation function for the VRU's wider youth digital safety programme. They will be responsible for strengthening the VRU’s response to online harms and youth digital safety to become more coordinated, evidence-led and mature. They will provide cross-cutting expertise and a test-and-learn function that can monitor emerging issues, share best practice, and strengthen the connection between research, policy, safeguarding and delivery.

Target Audience

The commission will focus on online harms affecting children and young people aged 11–25, with relevance to the VRU's violence reduction, safeguarding and prevention agenda. Providers will need to demonstrate an understanding of how digital risks, behaviours and protective factors may present differently across adolescence and intersectionality - and draw on relevant specialist expertise where needed.

The commission is expected to address a broad and evolving range of online harms that may intersect with peer conflict and harmful social media dynamics through to exploitation, VAWG and misogyny, technology-enabled abuse, and forms of online harm that can contribute to or escalate offline violence.

This list is indicative rather than exhaustive; a core purpose of the commission is to help the VRU refine its understanding of which online harms are most relevant to its violence reduction agenda.

Scope of Delivery

The commission is structured into two complementary lots, each with core requirements and an optional draw-down provision that may be accessed subject to programme need, funding availability and internal governance approvals. Bids may be led by a single organisation, consortium or partnership.

Lot 1: Research, Policy and Strategic Insight

Provides strategic evidence, research, horizon-scanning, policy support, knowledge products and external influence relevant to youth digital safety and online harms - including emerging evidence and strategic insight, knowledge products and briefings, policy and legislative developments, consultation support, and evidence synthesis.

Lot 2: Programme Development, Test-and-Learn and Learning Partner

Supports programme design, co-design, implementation learning and continuous improvement across the VRU's wider youth digital safety portfolio - including support to test-and-learn activity, facilitate communities of practice, learning and evaluation, practice translation, and the development of frameworks, tools or guidance based on delivery learning.

The Expert Partner will sit across the VRU's wider youth digital safety programme, which at the time of commissioning is expected to include Trusted Adult Training, Digital Youth Work Pilots, and Local Authority Test-and-Learn Pilots. Future work, which is not confirmed, may include Digital Bystander Intervention Training for young people and a support model for girls and young women experiencing online VAWG.

The programme is expected to contribute to:

•A stronger London-wide evidence base and clearer strategic understanding of online harms affecting children and young people.

•Improved safeguarding understanding and practice in relation to digital risks across statutory and non-statutory partners.

•Youth voice embedded across programme design, delivery, learning and policy development.

•Stronger programme design, co-design, evaluation and continuous improvement across the wider youth digital safety portfolio.

•Improved coordination, partnership-working and greater maturity in London's response to online harms.

•Increased VRU influence, collaboration and credibility locally, regionally and nationally.

Timeframe and Budget

The maximum estimated fixed budget for this commission is up to £316,000 excl VAT over a 30-month contract period (2 years plus a 6-month extension), subject to confirmation of funding, internal governance and relevant approvals. This comprises up to £110,600 for Lot 1 and up to £205,400 for Lot 2.

The contract may also include optional draw-down provision under both lots, subject to programme need, funding availability and relevant approvals. The maximum draw-down value is up to £82,000 for Lot 1 and up to £152,000 for Lot 2.

Accordingly, the maximum total contract value is up to £550,000 excl VAT over 30 months. This includes both the fixed core budget and any optional draw-down provision. The VRU does not guarantee that the full maximum value will be utilised.

Market Engagement / Response

The VRU welcomes engagement from organisations with expertise in online harms across research, policy, and frontline practice. We also encourage organisations with strengths in learning and evaluation, knowledge and capacity-building, and supporting the embedding of improved safeguarding, organisational practice, and programme design. This will contribute to establishing a mature regional model to prevent and tackle online harms, encompassing youth participation, safeguarding, violence reduction, and VAWG.

The Eventbrite link for the market warming session can be found here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/expert-partner-for… ↗

The VRU welcomes partnership bids for this tender. If you are interested in sharing your details with other potential providers, please email [email protected] and you will be asked to fill in a short questionnaire.

Please note that this exercise is in no way a call for competition and will not result in the award of a contract to any respondents to this notice.