Dr Mark Prince said it was a scandal that so many youth clubs have closed as the foundation set up in his son’s name launched a new campaign on the 20th anniversary of Kiyan Prince’s death. The Kiyan Prince Foundation unveiled The Champions' Club to push for youth workers to be treated on the same level as teachers and to argue that help should come before punishment.

Kiyan Prince was 15 when he was stabbed to death outside the London Academy in Edgware, north-west London, in May 2006 after stepping in to break up a mock fight. He was a footballer for Queens Park Rangers’ youth team, and his death has become a symbol for Dr Prince of what is lost when teenagers are left without support.

Dr Prince, who founded and now leads the Kiyan Prince Foundation, said too much money and effort are being spent on criminalising young people instead of helping them. Speaking to Radio London’s Eddie Nestor, he said young people are held back by a society that sees them as the problem rather than as a generation with potential. He said youth clubs play a huge role in building a winning mentality, but the number of them has declined rapidly in the past 15 years, calling that decline a scandal.

The campaign is built around a simple argument: when young people are struggling, adults should sit down with them, find out what is going on and get to the heart of the matter. Dr Prince said the aim of The Champions' Club is to create that space and offer support, not judgment. The foundation wants more investment in youth services and says youth workers are undervalued and underfunded.

That message also reaches into schools, where Dr Prince drew a stark comparison between pupil referral units and prisons. He asked how the two are different, saying that if a child breaks the rules they are often isolated, just as a prisoner who does not behave is put in isolation. In his view, that approach wastes time. Building a relationship with the child does more, he said, than detention or isolation ever will.

The anniversary gives the campaign added weight, because it links a family’s loss to a wider argument about how Britain treats troubled children. Kiyan Prince’s death in May 2006, outside his school, is still the story behind the message. The foundation says the answer is not more punishment, but more care, more structure and more places where young people can belong.

That leaves a clear test for policymakers and local communities alike: whether they accept Dr Prince’s case that youth clubs and youth workers are not extras, but a basic part of keeping children safe before problems turn into tragedy.