Our youth work needs to attract more funding

AS chair of the board of directors which manages Queen’s Crescent Community Centre, I am pleased to be able to report that both of the people who were injured outside William Hill in the Crescent have now thankfully recovered (Gun victim: Cops ignore teen crime, January 21).
Given a gun was involved it could have been a very, very different outcome.
QCCC works closely, and will continue to do so, with the police. I took part in the Gold Committee which met immediately after the incident and QCCC staff  have had several meetings with senior police officers and members of the Safer Neighbourhoods team.  We help run joint activities between the police with young people including sporting events and discussions groups about the dangers of knife crimes and drugs.
QCCC Association and its partner Gospel Oak Action Link (GOAL) provide about two-thirds of the youth work activities in the area and are keen to expand our work, particularly, with the younger age group, as funding allows.
As charities we lever in considerable sums of money from local and national charities to enable us to carry out what the council calls “universal” youth work and deploy a team of volunteers. Most of our activities are linked to education, life skills and the community.
We believe much of our success lies on the fact that we employ trained local people.
We are not complacent and we intend to host a local conference to work out ways of making even better and more co-ordinated provision for young people, this will of course include the police.
The Gospel Oak Neighbourhood Forum last week agreed to provide us with half the cost of a minibus.
We will get the other half from a charity. This will enable us to take more young people outside the area and will be a resource for the area as a whole.
Our ability to attract funds from charities will become more important if and when there are cuts in local authority spending. There is much good news and good work in Gospel Oak which we hope will not be drowned by one sensational, albeit very serious, incident.
MICK FARRANT
Queen’s Crescent Community Association, NW5