THE work of a team set up to support youngsters going through life-altering changes is going from strength to strength.

Since launching in January, Brathay Trust’s Focus on Furness team has already seen one cohort of girls through their Be Safe and Value Yourself programme funded by the Cumbria Police and Crime Commissioner. The first having finished in April, the current group will complete the programme with a residential trip to Ambleside in August.

Hel Lawrie, a Brathay project manager, said: “One of the best things about doing this job is being able to see the change that young people make from the start of a project to the end.

“It might not be anything massively drastic, but even small changes can have a huge impact for young people. It might just be one thing that they say, and you can see that it’s made a difference to them in some way.”

Jacqui Wallace, Brathay’s Cumbria projects manager, added: “The hard part is getting them through the door. It’s a circle that the hardest ones to reach are the hardest ones to engage. But once they’re in, they tend to really engage.”

Brathay’s Focus on Furness project was set up after the national Ambleside-based young people’s charity identified a need to reach out to the 20.4 per cent of Barrow children living in poverty. As well as working with girls and young women, the team is also running an eight-week programme for those on the verge of entering care, funded partly by Inspiring Barrow and Cumbria County Council and run from Rampside Village Hall.

Ms Wallace said: “It can be a very chaotic lifestyle, being in that transition, so helping them manage and reduce anxiety is a big part of that, as well as helping them reach individual goals.”

Other projects the Focus on Furness team have been involved in include KickStart, another Inspiring Barrow project aimed at motivating Year 7 Furness Academy pupils to meet their aspirations. They have also been one of Cumbria’s providers for the government’s Headstart initiative, working on a peer mentoring scheme with Dowdales and Furness Academy, as well as five of their feeder schools.

Ms Wallace said: “For us, one of the benefits of being in the community is that ability to work with other organisations and link up with them to help keep our young people engaged. It just feels like you’re part of the bigger picture and part of the community that supports them back on their home turf, rather than them just coming to Brathay - which is brilliant, but a totally different environment.

“All these little bits that we’ve got going are just bubbling away and from everything we do, we find new things grow. We just want it to continue.”