Beginnings
The Croydon Youth Development Trust, was set up in 1988 in New Addington, as the joint initiative of three youth work agencies, working with the Croydon Youth Service which offered professional support and advice. They saw the need to identify new ways of working with young people, particularly those most educationally or socially disadvantaged. These were the young people with whom the Youth Service had lost touch because they had rejected, or been rejected by, the traditional building-based recreational activity which the service then offered.
The Trust was thus established, as a Borough wide initiative, to promote innovative work with young people and undertake research on adolescence. This was to be achieved through projects run directly by the Trust and through partnerships with other local voluntary initiatives, for example, by allowing them to operate under the umbrella of the Trust's legal, administrative and financial infrastructure or by assisting them in raising funds.
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Project Programme
The Trust's first venture was the New Addington Detached Youth Work Project (NADYWP), a street-based programme of youth work targeted at those who found the more traditional youth centres and clubs inappropriate or unattractive. Unfortunately, the local authority was unable to assume responsibility for the continued funding of this project when its experimental three-year lifespan, funded mainly from charitable sources, came to an end. As a consequence the NADYWP ceased to operate
Driving Principles
The Trust aims to complement and enhance the work of the traditional youth services in Croydon - and also engage with new Government led initiatives to resolve some of the issues confronting disadvantaged young people - through projects which are both innovative and imaginative. The principles driving the Trust are:
to experiment with
new approaches in addressing the needs of young
people
to work in partnership
with local young people and other agencies.
to specialise in work
with young people who are disadvantaged, including
those excluded from school and those at risk of
or involved in crime.
to recognise the special needs of minorities, particularly those of ethnic communities and unaccompanied young refugees and asylum seekers
to create positive
opportunities for young people which encourage
personal development.
for the local management
of projects by local people.
to evaluate the effectiveness
of the project and disseminate the results so
that other agencies can benefit from our experience
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The NADYWP had recognised the need to provide a service for a small group of young people, mainly boys, engaged, or at risk of engaging in, auto-crime. Accordingly, it set up a subsidiary scheme, the New Addington Bike Scheme (NABS), with seconded staffing from the Croydon Youth Service. This operated on one evening a week in premises provided by the Youth Justice Section of the Social Services Department. Because it required only limited funding NABS was able to continue when the main project wound up.
Later, following discussions with a multi-agency think tank on youth crime in the Borough, the Trust decided to develop NABS into a borough-wide initiative and CABS (Croydon Auto & Bike Scheme) emerged as the Trust's next big project. At the same time the Trust was working on research projects and a programme of other projects including The Studio and the Junior YIP projects which are all still operating. For a time the Trust also worked in partnership with other agencies on the Breathing Space and Families Matter projects.
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 New
Headquarters
For some time the Trust was run from the home of the previous Chief Executive, Bernard Doswell, in Morden. In 1998, however, the Trust moved to Croydon where it shared an office in Wellesley Court Road with Croydon YMCA Housing Association.
Late in 2001 premises were acquired for the CABS project at 64/66 Windmill Road, Croydon and the Trust's HQ, and some of the Trust's other projects, are now based there.
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Working Together
The Trust is keen to work in collaboration
with other agencies. Here is a list of agencies with whom we
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The Borough Council's Youth Service (statutory)