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Warwickshire takes sporting action
Warwickshire Council has announced that its Youth Contact Team (YCT) sports initiative, which began in January 2004, has helped to lower the number of nuisance youth-related incidents in both Nuneaton and Bedworth.
Working at street level in conjunction with a number of other community groups, the YCT was established to ease the growth in nuisance youth behaviour in two Warwickshire areas – Nuneaton and Bedworth – via encouraging participation in a variety of sport-related activities.
A partnership project, funded by both the local council and Nuneaton & Bedworth Leisure Trust, the YCT uses sport, mentoring and information to encourage youths to display a more positive attitude around their local community while enjoying sport in a safe and friendly manner.
Although the YCT is currently a six-month pilot scheme, organisers hope that it will now be extended in order to provide more opportunities for local youths to take advantage of the initiative.
So far, the YCT has contacted over 500 youths, while the team engaged with 182 young people aged between eight and 19 years old in June 2004 alone.
Team leader, Rod Doyle, said: “We have found that a lot of young people feel that there is little, or nothing, to do around their local vicinity.
“This is not always true and we have made it our mission to either inform young people of opportunities or find them something more positive to do, instead of feeling detached from the local community.”