MORE than 3,000 young people in Bradford on Avon and the surrounding area will benefit from a new-look youth and family care service.

Bradford on Avon Town Council has signed a three-year contract worth more than £144,000, with Community Family Care to cover provide youth and family care services for the town and surrounding villages.

The service, due to start in September, will be working with people aged 10-18 and with people with additional needs or who have been in care until they are 25.

The contract will see the revival of the town’s youth centre on Frome Road, with several new youth and family care workers employed.

It will offer outreach services to local villages, including Winsley, Westwood, South Wraxall, Staverton and Holt, which are in Bradford on Avon Area Board district.

Council leader, Cllr Dominic Newton, said: “We are very, very excited to be working with CFC in delivering one of the first new youth services to be commissioned since 2010.

“We are proud to be leading a partnership across all party lines at Town and Area Board level to deliver an innovative and exciting service for young people in the town.

“The service has key elements – outreach and detached work, as well as youth club services – but it will really be for our young people to decide, with the new youth workers, what those new services really look like.

“We’re looking forward to seeing how those develop and are hopeful that it will help a new generation of young people engage in their local community and with an expectation and understanding of their right to have their voice heard in decisions, locally and nationally.”

Community Family Care is part of Community Foster Care, a foster care charity and social enterprise with four offices, operating in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Lancashire and Cumbria.

CFC’s chief executive Mark Kingston said: “We are a firm believer in the significant value and social capital held both within all local young people and the local community.

“At Community Family Care, we are driven by our values and see our role as unleashing the potential and ultimately enabling the community to release the ambition of their young people and creating a better Bradford on Avon. “We want young people to feel this is their service and as a starting point, would like young people to develop the name for their new youth service. We are inviting suggestions from local young people to be emailed to us at Info@Communityfamilycare.co.uk.”

The appointment to deliver the service follows the youth service strategy approved by town councillors in December last year and a highly competitive tender process.

The council received two presentations from the Community Family Care team and a national children’s charity.

Councillors agreed that the new provider would provide a highly innovative, responsive and localised service for Bradford on Avon and the surrounding villages.

The new service will also bring jobs to the local area, with the expected recruitment of several youth workers as part of the service.

The new Youth Service is funded primarily by the Town Council, with additional financial support from the Bradford on Avon Area Board and the Colonel William Llewellen Palmer Educational Charity (CWLPEC).

It will operate in the town and reach out into the surrounding villages, covering an area matching the four Wiltshire Council divisions of Bradford on Avon—North, Bradford on Avon—South, Holt and Staverton and Winsley and Westwood.

It will deliver some ‘traditional’ services in addition to outreach work and more targeted work with young people.

It will also work closely with local schools and other service providers, including delivering preventative work to address behaviours that may place young people at risk.

Councillors are also keen that the service provides a platform for young people to have more of a direct say in decisions that affect them and will be looking to the service to provide opportunities for youth participation and citizenship initiatives.