Peterborough youth offenders to improve allotments in program to cut re-offending

Infrastructure services and engineering company Amey has donated 10 tonnes of soil improver to YMCA Trinity Group’s Reparation Service.

The program delivers reparation services on behalf of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Youth Offending Service.

The soil has been made from local green garden waste and will be used to improve allotments in Peterborough, Cambridge and Huntingdon that engage and support young offenders.

Teresa Brown, reparation project manager at YMCA Trinity Group, said: “At YMCA Trinity Group’s Reparation Service we aim to provide locally based opportunities to enable young offenders to engage and interact with their community.

“Many of the young people who take part in the project have never grown anything before and working in this environment gives them a positive experience, as well as a new perspective which can help to prevent re-offending in the future.

“We are incredibly grateful for the kind donation from Amey which will help us with both our existing and future projects.”

In an average month, the reparation service will work with up to 33 young people aged between 11-18 and schedule 42 sessions of reparation.

Jon Jones, account director at Amey, said: “The work of the YMCA with young families is so important, and utilising the great outdoors as a way of improving lives is fantastic. We are very happy to support their local projects with a donation of local soil improver made in Cambridgeshire.”

Each year, YMCA Trinity Group supports around 10,000 young and vulnerable people, and communities across Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Its primary aim is to enable every young person to grow and develop, running initiatives that tackle issues such as: youth engagement, youth offending, mental health, access to employment, domestic abuse and crisis support.

Other community services provided by YMCA Trinity Group include: health, fitness and wellbeing facilities, training and education, childcare, youth work, accommodation and venue hire.

More information on YMCA Trinity Group’s Reparation Service can be found at: https://ymcatrinitygroup.org.uk/counselling/reparation/.