Service for vulnerable young people receives funding boost

An intervention service for vulnerable young people in the Melksham area has received funding for an additional six months.

Funding for the Melksham Targeted Intervention Service for 13 to 19-year olds, was due to expire at the end of February. But now the service, which is run by the not-for-profit agency, Community Foster Care (CFC), will run until the summer thanks to £5,000 from the Melksham Area Board.

To date, the service has offered 76 support sessions, working with 15 young people from Melksham Oak School – six of these cases have now been resolved. Reasons for referral into the service range from anger management, risky behaviour in the community, low self-esteem and poor body image, anxiety, and parental separation.

Year 9 pastoral manager at Melksham Oak, Kinna Dann said, “Sometimes we struggle to get students to engage with support. Often the support that we offer in school has a slight stigma attached to it, and our students don’t want to engage. They need something that is slightly “removed” from school. They need to feel confident in knowing that who they are talking to is not a member of staff at this school, and so not feel judged by their past behaviour/difficulties. I think this service perfectly provides that opportunity for some of our students. So far, the students that I have referred to both Cally and Alan have always been averse to any support offered by the school, but have engaged well with this service and we have seen some great progress.”

The Melksham Area Board, who originally set up the service last year, was asked for £9,594 at its meeting last week to continue the service for another year. However, whilst councillors were supportive of the project, they agreed on funding the project for another six months (£5,000) as they felt that as Melksham Oak was the focus and main beneficiary of the project, the school should be asked to contribute towards the service’s ongoing costs.

A meeting will be arranged between the school and the area board to discuss ‘match funding’ and the continuation of the service beyond the summer.