Choices

This project supports young people who are not in eduction, training or employment (NEET) to find and sustain training and employment. Funded by the Minton Trust, it helps young people who are facing complex barriers such as homelessness, family breakdown, leaving care, being young carers or teenage parents.

Started in 2011 in response to the growing number of young people at risk of getting involved in the criminal justice system we encountered, Choices has helped over 130 heavily disadvantaged young people improve their skills or find employment.

Choices works closely with other organisations such as Nacro, Centrepoint and TGB Learning who all provide in-house training to their clients.  Our caseworker on Choices supports the young people who have very chaotic lifestyles and backgrounds to stay engaged and motivated with their training through structured one-to-one and group work sessions. Choices also helps young people access further training, paid and voluntary employment.

A similar project known as Choices Plus works with disadvantaged 18-24 year olds who have qualifications below Level 2. Short courses offer additional help with Maths, IT and English and offers learners help with looking for jobs, apprenticeships and further training.  The project offers an excellent progression for young adults wishing to improve their skills.

Read about one young woman who was helped through Choices here.

Download a leaflet on Choices here and find out more in our Skills and Employment section.

 SOS Project

This award-winning London-wide project offers intensive support to persistent and prolific young offenders to help them break free from crime - particularly gang-related crime. It works with young people both in prison and in the community, offering a tailored package of support for each individual to help them identify and realise alternative aspirations and goals away from a life of crime. It also works with young people at risk of getting involved in the criminal justice system.

Click on the map below the picture on the right to see what services are offered in which boroughs.

SOS can help an individual across a wide range of practical and emotional areas including housing, support accessing education, employment and training, and re-establishing positive ties with family and siblings.  It is staffed by trained, reformed ex-offenders who have first-hand experience of the issues their clients are facing. 

The project works with Young Offender Institutions, focussing primarily on young people being released to south London. We also provide community-based support.

Private funding has enabled us to develop a community-based support service working with young people at risk in Kensington and Chelsea. Behind the wealthy pockets of this borough are areas of severe deprivation blighted by youth crime.  

Funding from the Barrow Cadbury Trust through their Transition to Adulthood (T2A) pilot has helped us to provide community-based support for young people in Brent and Croydon who are involved in gang culture or at risk of becoming so. Our staff provide intensive support to help young people move their lives forward in a positive way.  In Brent, this work focuses on addressing gang culture in an area crossing three borough boundaries, working in partnership with police, probation, Youth Offending Services and other voluntary agencies.  This gives all partners the ability to share information and develop a cohesive response.

We are also providing community work in the London Borough of Greenwich, south east London by supporting ex-offenders and young people at risk in the community.  We also support young people in London Borough of Ealing who are caught up in criminal lifestyles, addressing very specific needs local to this area.

We are working in partnership with the Safer London Foundation's Safe and Secure pan-London gang exit programme.  It re-locates gang members at serious risk of violence to other areas - a measure that is necessary in order for them to break free from their gang lifestyles.  Young people supported through this need to demonstrate motivation to change and sign up to a Memorandum of Understanding through which they agree to stay away from certain areas and engage in a challenging, intensive behaviour change programme.  Our role in this is to support clients with accessing accommodation, employment and training and ensuring they stay motivated and engaged with the programme. 

The project is funded through a range of sources including Southwark Council, The Barrow Cadbury Trust's Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Pilot for London, private funding and charitable trusts.

SOS Plus

Preventative work with young people at risk of gang crime, with the aim of preventing them becoming caught up in this lifestyle, is now provided through the SOS Project Plus.  Ex-offender volunteers trained through St Giles Trust are working with schools in London to inform students on the dangers of getting caught up in gang crime, particularly with regard to weapons.

Download a leaflet on SOS here.

If you are a parent or guardian who is worried about gangs please click here. 

If you are a young person who is worried about getting caught up in gang lifestyles, please click here.

To find out more about our SOS Project, please visit the SOS website here.