Guidance and Tools

Stronger individuals, supportive system: A practitioner’s guide to working with at-risk youth to prevent and counter violent extremism

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This guide outlines Mercy Corps’ mentorship-centered approach to supporting 1,363 at-risk individuals across four coastal counties in Kenya through the CREATE program. It presents a step-by-step account of design, delivery, and adaptation processes across three stages: establishing the program at the community level, identifying and enrolling participants, and delivering individualized support packages. The approach combines targeted, personalized support, including mentorship, psychosocial services, community engagement, and referral systems, with efforts to mobilize local actors and embed the work within broader systemic changes. The guide also shares key lessons on monitoring changes in risk and resilience, managing sensitive data, and aligning individual-level interventions with whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches to achieve more sustained P/CVE outcomes.

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