A youth project has proved so successful its leaders have been asked to extend the service to younger age groups.

And thanks to £500 funding from Broadacres’ Community Development Fund, the Colburn Youth Project can continue with its good work across the North Yorkshire town.

The four sessions a week offer up to 80 young people aged from 5-20 the chance to engage in a wide variety of activities. The range includes traditional card and board games, arts and crafts, computer and cookery skills and outdoor camping and hiking.

With no building of its own, the project hires space in Colburn’s library and village hall to deliver sessions and will use the funding from Broadacres to secure this for a further 20 weeks.

“Local authorities no longer fund youth services like ours and the parish council can only stretch to staff costs so we are delighted to receive this Broadacres grant to help us secure space,” said Senior Youth Leader Rachel Hall.

The project was first set up in 2017 amid concerns at an increase in crime and anti-social behaviour by teenagers in the town. Engagement by the team with young people and the diversionary activities offered proved successful and Public Space Protection Orders were able to be removed.

Following lockdown, the local community became concerned at the number of much younger children engaging in anti-social behaviour and turned to the project to see if it could repeat the success.

“It seemed this younger group, who had missed out on years of primary school learning, had not benefitted from the early structure and understanding of rules this provides and appeared to be running wild,” said Rachel.

“This is a younger group than youth projects would traditionally focus on but the parish council identified the issue and asked if we could include them in our work.”

Rachel said the positive re-enforcement the sessions provide has helped bring about a big improvement which has benefitted not only the young people themselves but also parents, peers, teachers, neighbours and the community at large.

“There is plenty of research to show the positive benefits of providing young people the opportunity to engage in positive activities,” said Rachel. “It can bring about long-term benefit in terms of reducing knife crime and a host of other criminal activities as well as offering better futures for young people.”

The Broadacres Community Development Fund supports local organisations, groups, and projects in areas where Broadacres has homes. All grants are approved by the Association’s own residents via a voting scheme using tokens similar to how Tesco award grants in its stores.

To apply to the Fund visit https://www.broadacres.org.uk/customer-area/getting-involved/community-development-fund/

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