About HITS
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History
So when did HITS begin?
Since you asked ….. 1981, though it was not until the following year that a charity was set up under the name Halton Intermediate Treatment Scheme, and we moved into our home at Bridgeview, which had been a Children’s Home.
Intermediate treatment?
Those words were from the Children and Young Persons Act of 1969, and it was about work with young offenders – it was meant to be ‘intermediate’ between taking them into Care and leaving them at home. At the time there was lots of group work and outdoor activities with young offenders. We had a separate building for the young offender work in those days, but now everyone is at Bridgeview.
So who started HITS?
Well, it was mainly people who worked for what was then the Halton District Council of Cheshire. Halton went unitary in 1998, and became a Borough, but our relationship with the Council was, and still is, very important to us, and we think, important to the Council.
What else did HITS do?
We had a school for children in care, at Bridgeview, and we employed teachers. Later it became an ‘alternative’ school for young people who were excluded from their proper schools, or who were poor attenders.
So, young offenders and a school at Bridgeview. HITS does not do those things now, so what happened?
Well, I though you might ask that! In 1998, the Youth Offending Team arrived, and all the work with young offenders went there. And in 2004, a Pupil Referral Unit was set up at Grangeway Community Centre, next door to HITS, and that was the end of our school.
Wow! traumatic! So you lost all your work and yet HITS is still going! how did you manage that?
Well, if you put it in business terms, we diversified into other products. While we still had the school and young offender work, we started working with other young people who were not offenders such as young carers and young women, we began working in schools, and got lots more volunteers. And when the young offenders left us, the Council asked us to work with Care Leavers. So all that other work grew to fill the spaces left by the work we lost, and fortunately we were able to keep most of the staff. And we got into exciting partnerships, for example with Kings Cross for our school work, and Age Concern for our Bridging Generations project. Subsequently, these partnerships have led to others, such as Halton Youth Academy, the Happen 4U Community Interest Company, and Scrapbook - the Musical.
Is there anything else you want to tell me, like what happened to the intermediate treatment bit?
Well spotted! It's not in our name now.
In 2002, we re-launched HITS with a new name – people liked the ‘HITS’ bit, but not the words, so we found new ones – Hope, Inclusion, Time, Success – which is what we want young people to find at HITS.
So what’s next?
Lots of interesting times! Services for Children are now joined together under the new Director of Children’s Services for Halton. That is a big change, because in the past we have got our money from different departments in the Council and Government. We are working with other agencies, statutory and voluntary, to implement the Children and Young People's Plan. A new Plan was published in August 2009. Much of HITS work is commissioned through the Plan, but we have recently in 2007 and 2008) experienced the loss of funding both for our schools work and training for 16-19 year olds, and there has been a 'real terms' reduction in HITS overall funding. This reflects tighter economic times generally, a preference on the part of some statutory agencies for letting contracts to larger organisations, and increasing 'mainstreaming' of work formerly pioneered by charities such as HITS. The Youth Offending Team and the role out of SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) in schools are examples. At HITS, we think the reasons that staff from the old Cheshire County Council first started the organisation, way back in 1981, still hold good today.
- Voluntary organisations are able to access funds not available to statutory organisations;
- Some statutory services are more accessible to young people if provided at ‘arms length’ (from the Council) through a voluntary organisation.
Is that it then?
Of course not! Jump back on board the van (click) to find out about HITS' now (2009) and our current priorities.