SURREY CARE TRUST

The Surrey Care Trust is passionate about helping people to transform their life chances through learning and developing new skills whatever age they are.

Low skills means low incomes, a precarious existence financially and also poverty of aspiration. Our family and community education programme, known as FACE, inspires people to realise that they have talents they can nurture. Our FACE workers give people advice and practical help in accessing training and job-seeking and organise courses tailored to local needs in community venues.

We work with many disaffected young people who find it difficult to fit into mainstream school and are at risk of finishing their years of education with few skills to take them through life. These are young people who are often challenging in their behaviour, who may have had a difficult start in life and who are readily dismissed as no-hopers. Others may have given up on them.

We don't give up on them ... we offer them a second chance because we see they are all young people with potential to make a success of their lives.

Our aim is to keep them in education, either in their own schools or at one of our own learning centres.

Other young people leave education without qualifications or sufficient skills to help them identify their next steps in learning and work.  We run a 12 week Prince’s Trust Team personal development programme that works with 16-25 year olds aimed at raising their self-esteem and improving their confidence.

Some of our training is based around our very own Swingbridge Community Boat... and we are about to take delivery of a second boat, Swingbridge 2.

Among those who benefit from working and learning with Swingbridge are offenders who, instead of prison, have been sentenced to carry out unpaid work for the community. Swingbridge is one of the places they can come to do this work... and it can be a very positive experience.

They learn new skills in environmental work, even in some cases take the first accredited steps to gaining qualifications and they can truly see the value of what they are doing in maintaining and enhancing the environment along the River Wey, the Basingstoke Canal and River Thames. Even on days when there is no training going on, our many Surrey Care Trust volunteers often carry on with environmental work, making a major contribution to the quality of local open spaces.

Another major group who appreciate Swingbridge are the hundreds of people every year whom we are able to invite on boat trips to enjoy these attractive open spaces from the peaceful vantage point of the water.

These are mainly people who are elderly and frail, have limited mobility or other special needs...and being able to provide this facility is a wonderful additional benefit of running Swingbridge.

The Surrey Care Trust is managing the new Sure Start Children's Centre in Stanwell, co-ordinating a network of support and provision for children and their families. We will also be opening our own Skills Centre in this community, providing training for young people and adults in essential skills including bricklaying and carpentry.