Through Corporate Social Responsibility, businesses with both large and small turnovers can make a sustainable difference to project and charitable work both locally and nationally.

A project winning awards in Essex - twice winning an award from the High Sherriff of Essex, and last year the eastern region Nationwide Community and Heritage Award for community volunteering - is TurnAround, which works with vulnerable youth and community mentors.

TurnAround is the brainchild of CEO Jo Roberts, a South African who has now been living as long in Britain as in South Africa, and who has captured the heart of some remarkable projects from the developing world, that have been freshly innovative in the field of working with young people at risk.

The project works with youth who are excluded from school, in trouble with the police and simply not coping with life. Most have chronic anger management issues as a result of high personal frustration levels and little self control, which can lead to more of the same in their adult lives.

Working with these young people for two years, Jo says,

'It is always incredible to see the fast track progress these young people make, given the simplest of support which is endless time and attention, a genuine affection for their age group and a keenness to understand their issues and perspectives. This costs almost nothing but personal time, and yet is worth its weight in gold bars if one considers the cost of these young people having to be put in Youth Offending Institutes or going into care. Just one year in an Institute costs a minimum of £47,000 to the tax payer.'

The focus of the programme is wilderness therapy, led by psychotherapists, wilderness guides and the mentoring team. Two extended wilderness trails take place on the programme at the beginning and the end, with community mentors taking part in the first. This is a challenging experience heading up into the Scottish highlands for ten days with simply a pack on their backs, all their food and equipment for that period, and the young people!

TurnAround is a project that believes young people need the support of a community, particularly when parents, for whatever reason, seem unable to cope. This is found through community volunteer mentors who work with individual youth for a year initially and then by choice, into the future.

Mentors seem to get as much from the programme as the youth. One mentor, Zoe Cranley an artist working in the film industry said:

“I just feel so privileged being trusted by these youngsters, many who have no reason to trust anyone at all after their life experiences. It humbles me to see how well they have coped with their life issues and it puts mine into perspective! I am now doing my second year with TurnAround because I love the work.'

Another mentor, Ali Moran, an employment law specialist was heard to say:

“I learned more about managing people and myself in 10 days on TurnAround than I did in six months of NLP training'.

Apart from the trails, the mentors meet their young mentee once a week or fortnightly, attend a monthly programme of outdoor activity and are expected to attend child protection training and mentoring training. All need to be Advanced CRB checked.

Regardless of the huge personal satisfaction this brings individual mentors, seeing young people develop before their eyes, there is a benefit to companies who release staff to be a mentor. All the intensive training and development of those individuals will find a home back in their office environment with increased ability to coach and mentor other staff, as well as building multi skills (not just cooking on a fire though), and of course leadership development.

Companies can offset their CSR obligations band, working with an environmental charity (the main focus of the Wilderness Foundation UK which has developed TurnAround as a key project under their wing), as well as community engagement in something that has been carefully researched, developed and enacted. Last year's pilot had outstanding results of 80% of the graduates re-entering education, training or working.

The University of Essex monitors everyone and significant changes in behaviour, self esteem and mood were measured with extremely positive outcomes. This research is ongoing and is now being used at international conferences to support the impact taking young people into wilderness can have on their personal development.

Companies who support TurnAround could benefit from excellent PR coverage as The Wilderness Foundation UK will be liaising with national and local media to gain more awareness for the work. They will also benefit from the prestige and respect that commitment to youth and community can bring from both partners and the public. Business acumen and insights may also be offered to build the project further and to seek ways of increasing internship and work experience opportunities. The possibilities are enormous.

The next TurnAround will commence after October 2009. Mentoring costs nothing to the company just staff time. Each scholarship for TurnAround costs £7,000 pa and a scholar could be identified as being funded by their company. We are open to all suggestions so long as it doesn't compromise the privacy of the young person, or their safety

www.wildernessfoundation.org.uk