A Bath & North East Somerset Council project that works to keep young people out of trouble with the law has been given a top award.
The Compass Project has been awarded the Gold Charter Mark Award by the Children’s Society for encouraging children and young people to take part in its services.
The project was set up about ten years ago by the Council and is based at the Youth Offending Service in Charlotte Street, Bath. It works with 8-17 year olds and their families to prevent the onset of offending and helps to divert them from anti-social behaviour.
Each year, it supports children and young people, working with them, their parents and sometimes their brothers or sisters for periods of about six months.
Compass offers support in school as well as a focus on health and wellbeing, with the aim of building on the strengths and resilience of young people and helping them feel part of their community.
Cllr Dine Romero, Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children and Youth (Lib-Dem, Southdown) said: “This is really excellent news.
“To achieve the Gold Charter Mark award, the project had to demonstrate how it involves children and young people in its work. Compass puts children and young people at the centre of everything it does, involving them in job interviews, staff inductions and performance reviews.”
Emily Andrews, who works for the Council as senior practitioner with this project, added: “We have worked hard to ensure children are listened to and that they actively influence the development of our service.
“We believe that if children and young people feel listened to they will value this experience and help us to improve our work for others.
“We regularly meet with our children and young people to discuss ideas for development and, as a result of this, a new leaflet for young people explaining what Compass does was designed by them.
“One child we work with also produced a video about his experiences, which we are now using as part of the training for our children’s services team.”
The Compass Project had previously been awarded a Bronze Charter Mark in 2008 and a Silver award in 2010.
Referrals to the service come from parents, schools, social workers, the Youth Offending Service and the police and sometimes from the young people themselves.
For further information about Compass, please contact 01225 396990 or e mail [email protected].