At-risk Kettering children to benefit from £43k grant to help them avoid a life of crime

Kettering charity Groundwork Northamptonshire has been awarded a grant of £43,850 from the Youth Endowment Fund to support young people at-risk of being drawn into violent crime through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The charity is to use the cash to provide a programme to provide early intervention to help support vulnerable children and young people in Kettering.

The year-long programme will run until July 2021 It will pay for sessions in the community as well as a youth engagement officer who will work in local schools to support young people as they transition back into full time education by easing the anxieties they may have following the social distancing and stay-at-home measures.

This programme has been developed to help young people make positive and informed choices to keep them safe.

The Youth Endowment Fund is an independent charitable trust set up by the Home Office. It funds, supports and evaluates projects in England and Wales which work to prevent children and young people from being drawn into violent crime.

Groundwork Northamptonshire is one of 130 organisations to share part of a £6.5m grant pot from the Youth Endowment Fund to help at-risk young people impacted by COVID-19.

Kimberley Lawson, Operations Director at Groundwork Northamptonshire, said: “Children and young people may not have been the highest risk group of the pandemic in terms of direct physical impact but the potential long term effects it could have on their health and well-being is huge.

"We are so pleased to have secured this funding and due to the fantastic partnerships we have with both the local authority and Northamptonshire Police, we will be able to use it to target and help the children and young people that need it most, giving them the best chance at a brighter future following these challenging times."

Jon Yates, Executive Director at Youth Endowment Fund, said: “It has been too easy to forget vulnerable young people during this crisis. The pandemic has removed much of the critical support that many of them rely upon – from teachers to youth workers. This funding will help us find the best way to reach and support these young people when they most need it.”

Chief Inspector Julie Mead from Northamptonshire Police added: “We’re thrilled Groundwork Northamptonshire have been awarded this funding which bears testimony to the incredibly hard work the team put into the application.

"It is great news the team will now be able to expand on the fantastic work they already do to help vulnerable children and young people in Kettering at this critical time. This work aligns perfectly with the current project, #Citadel which is the overarching partnership approach to tackling vulnerability in the town. The early intervention element is absolutely key to its success and has our wholehearted support.

Groundwork Northamptonshire, which has been running since 2005, is a youth and environmental regeneration charity that runs local projects. It is the founder of Corby's incredibly succesful Jam project which runs intervention programmes for young people in the town.