Urban youth charity XLP is to get a visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

They will meet with some of XLP's mentors working with some of London's most vulnerable young people.

The royal couple will also meet with XLP CEO Patrick Regan to discuss issues around knife crime and social justice.

Patrick Regan said: ''The encouragement and support we've received from the Duke and Duchess is immensely important to us and we are incredibly grateful they are coming again to see first-hand what is being achieved.

"XLPs mentoring programme is about helping young people find an alternative to the life-long negative impact of educational failure, gangs and violence such as knife crime."

XLP's XL-Mentoring partners mentors young people who are struggling in school and are involved in gangs, crime and anti-social behavior. The scheme aims to help young people access an education, get out of gangs and criminality, and set positive goals for themselves.

The Duke and Duchess will be shown how positive role model mentoring relationships can support vulnerable young people to make better life choices.

The charity's CEO continued: "We need long-term trusted mentoring relationships to help the next generation come through these challenges, build strong families and finally escape poverty and social deprivation.

"We're in this for the long-haul and to see the greatest impact."

The Duke and Duchess will meet Sephton, a young man who has been involved with gangs and criminality, having been in and out of prison seven times since the age of 14. Sephton has been mentored by a youth worker and XLP mentor and said: "XLP came in and showed me love, compassion and time, something I'd never been given before."

The XL-Mentoring project is one of several programmes operated by the charity that offer 'life chance' opportunities and the support children and young people need when growing up on housing estates where gangs are pervasive and criminality, drugs and anti-social behaviour are common place.

You can find out more about XLP on their website, and about the national XL-Mentoring project here.