Police funding for Flintshire youth club

North Wales Police and Community Trust (PACT) funding has been awarded to Trelawnyd Community Association to purchase new equipment for their new Youth Club and assistance to obtain DBS checks for volunteers.

The Youth Club has recently started in the area to engage with young people aged 7-14 years with an aim to maintain a safe neighbourhood and discourage anti-social behaviour and criminal damage.

The Youth Club runs in Trelawnyd Memorial Hall, Flintshire and is open to youths from the surrounding villages of Trelawnyd and Gwaenysgor.

The club provides an opportunity for young people from relatively isolated areas to socialise outside of school as well as giving them a chance to meet other members of the community too.

The club will also bring together parents and residents who live in the community who may not otherwise have met.

PACT funding has been used to purchase equipment such as a table tennis table, pool table, sofas, music centre and PlayStation with games as well as DBS checks for four volunteers who run the sessions.

PACT Project manager, Dave Evans, visited the new club recently with PACT trustee Paul Hinchliffe, and saw for themselves the impact the club was having on local young people of all ages and the valuable support that local volunteers were giving.

Dave said: “Paul and I were tremendously impressed with the wide variety of activities that the young people have been given and the rules of that the young people themselves have devised. We are very grateful to the volunteers from Trelawnyd Community Association who have worked so hard to make this such a success.”

The club also provides an opportunity for youth education, with future visits being planned by the Safer Neighbourhood Team to give safety inputs on topics such as road safety, drug and alcohol misuse and internet safety.

Inspector Gareth Cust said: “Youth engagement at this level is key to promote community cohesion and support the objectives to reduce crime and disorder in the local area. This will be a valuable venue for our Neighbourhood Policing Team to deliver youth education sessions on topics such as ‘County lines’.”

North Wales Police and Community Trust (PACT) is the community safety charity supports community-led projects that encourage a safer North Wales. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, PACT continues to champion neighbourhood projects that support the policing and community safety priorities and strive to deliver positive outcomes for all concerned.