Our history

Find out about the development of Leap Confronting Conflict as an organisation.

Leap Confronting Conflict began life as LEAP (Leaveners Experiments in Arts for Peace), established in 1987 by Alec Davison as a project of The Leaveners (Quaker Community Arts Charity). In our earliest days, we worked with young unemployed adults, using theatre projects to help them deal with the conflict in their lives.

Pioneering early work led to the commission of major international research by Nic Fine and Fi Macbeth, which informed our ideas and our top-selling manual, Playing with Fire.

As well as working directly with young people, Leap began to train those who work with them. The need for such work soon became clear, and the project attracted regional, national and international recognition. In 1992 the Department for Education and Employment (Youth Service Unit) provided funds to launch Leap as the only conflict resolution centre for the British Youth Service.

Leap started to work in schools and young offenders’ institutions. We ran projects with young homeless people, and began training young peer mediators. Demand for our work soared, and Trustees recognised that the charity needed to change.

An independent charity is born

In 1998, Leap Confronting Conflict was launched as an independent registered charity and National Voluntary Youth Organisation registered with the Department for Education and Skills.

Always responsive to new challenges, the new charity began ground-breaking work with young people involved in gangs in 2000, and set up the country’s first national network of young mediators (the YMN). Our projects were short-listed for Philip Lawrence Awards and the Whitbread Young Partners Awards. We also received Investors in People status in 2000, 2004 and 2008.

In 2004, New Philanthropy Capital recommended Leap to funders as one of 45 organisations across Britain whose interventions are likely to produce positive, well-targeted results.. In the same year, Ofsted recommended that more young people and organisations should have access to Leap’s programmes.

In 2006, we published our ground-breaking manual, Working with Gangs and Young People. The Institute for Public Policy Research recommended our work in educational institutions and we launched the £1.3 million PeerLink project to promote and support peer mediation.

In 2007, we held the first ever National PeerLink Awards, moved to new, larger premises in London’s Finsbury Park, and recruited our first regional staff in Yorkshire and the South West.

In 2008, Leap was awarded Pathfinder funding by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and opened its first regional centre in Leeds. We are now working with Leeds Metropolitan University to create validated qualifications in youth and conflict to be delivered by the newly formed Leap Academy of Youth and Conflict.

In 2009, Leap won the overall national Charity of the Year Award, and the award for Children and Young People’s charity of the year.
Now, as we implement our new strategy for 2011 to 2013, the next chapter in Leap’s history begins.

Key milestones

1987: Leap is launched with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Quaker Peace Committee under the wing of the Leaveners. It aims to explore conflict through theatre projects with unemployed young adults.

1988: We receive three years of funding from the Department for Education and Science.

1989: The Leap Theatre Workshop ‘Mates – friendships and peer pressure’, wins the Youth Clubs UK Award for Excellence. We launch one-day courses for professional youth workers.

1990: The Leap workers visit American and base some of their future work on five projects experienced there: Youth at Risk, Alternatives to Violence, School Mediation, Geese Theatre and City Kids. We launch 60-hour training courses and change our name to Leap Confronting Conflict to distinguish ourselves from the Leap Theatre training.

1991: With funding from the Department of Education and Science we become Britain’s first Youth Conflict Resolution Training Centre. A new project in Islington initiates six-month supervised placements for youth work volunteers.

1992: Our first Training Manual, Playing with Fire sells out immediately. The Sir John Cass Foundation invites us to work in Feltham Young Offenders Institution, and Feltham Action on Conflict Training (FACT) is born.

1993: Our Handbook for Young People, Fireworks!, is published. The Department for Education provides funding for the Quarrel Shop youth mediation project. Youth violence and racism spark requests for Leap to work in schools in Tower Hamlets.

1994: The City Parochial Foundation begins funding Leap’s Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) in London prisons. With a £100,000 Youth Service Grant we expand the facilities of our Youth Conflict Resolution Training Centre.

1995: Playing with Fire is published by New Society Press in the USA.

1999: Leap Confronting Conflict becomes an independent registered charity and establishes the Young Mediators Network (YMN) – the first of its kind. Quarrel Shop becomes the first Leap project to gain formal OCN accreditation.

2000: Leap receives Investors in People status. We work with women prisoners for the first time in Holloway. YMN Steering group members are shortlisted for a Philip Lawrence Award. We begin ground-breaking work with young people involved in gangs.

2001: Playing with Fire is published in Russian and Italian.

2002: We launch our first gangs project in Glasgow.

2003: Leap is working with over 2,000 young people and 500 adults each year. Our first ‘Gangs! What Gangs?’ Conference is marked by a major piece in The Guardian.

2004: New Philanthropy Capital recommends Leap to funders as an organisation whose interventions are likely to work.

2005: A £1.3 million grant from Big Lottery transforms the YMN into Peerlink.

2006: Leap publishes its manual, Working with Gangs and Young People. The Institute for Public Policy Research recommend Leap’s work in educational institutions and our budget exceeds £1 million for the first time.

2007: Leap holds the first National Awards for Peer Mediation, and recruits regional staff in Yorkshire and the South West. We launch the Fear and Fashion project to tackle knife crime.

2008: Leap is awarded Pathfinder status by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. We begin to work with Leeds Metropolitan University to develop the Leap Academy of Youth and Conflict.

2009: Leap wins the overall national Charity of the Year Award, and the award for Children and Young People’s charity of the year.

2010: The scale of our work reaches new heights: Leap is working with over 8,500 young people, 1,600 adults and 200 organisations each year.

2011: A new strategy is launched to ensure Leap remains innovative, flexible and responsive to fast-changing needs.

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