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History

LCPT was established in 1980 (known at that time as Leicester Action for Youth Trust) and became a Registered Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee in 1981 – Charity number 512719, Company number 1617951.

Initial work focused on a number of initiatives for young people. Projects included a befriending scheme (1982-1985) Neighbourhood Intervention Project (1981-1984) and a Youth Project Centre(1982-1988) which provided counselling, group work and practical activities as alternatives to custodial sentences for juvenile offenders.

The Trust took over responsibility for the Junior Motor Project, in 1982 and developed a specific service in 1983 to help with employment for young people in trouble known as the Job Placement Scheme. The Junior Motor Project was subsumed within developments of the Trusts motor based work with young people and was renamed Motorvate in 1995.

In recognition of the fact that many of the issues and problems faced by young people are also shared by other age groups in the community the Trust became active in the field of drug use and abuse in 1986 with the formation of what became known as the "Drug Services".

The Drug Advice Centre opened in 1986, followed by the development of the Volunteer Helpline, County Development Work, HIV/AIDS Risk Reduction Work, and Hostel Development Project (1988-1990). In May 1990 the Prison Programme began with the secondment of a Probation Officer to undertake work on the problems of drugs/HIV within Leicestershire's penal establishments. From that has developed the Leicestershire Prisons Drug Initiative (1994/1995).

In February 1991 the Trust formally changed its object (with the full approval of the Charity Commissioners) so that it could endeavour to "relieve and prevent suffering of people in Leicestershire who have special needs particularly young people to assist them to acquire a settled way of life so that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society and that their conditions of life may be improved".

In October 1991 the Trust took over responsibility for the Leicestershire Alcohol Advice Centre from the Leicestershire Council for Alcoholism.

The Drugs Day Care service was established in 1994 with the opening of Base 12.

In September1995, the name of the organisation was changed from Leicester Action for Youth Trust to LEICESTERSHIRE COMMUNITY PROJECTS TRUST as the range of service and its area of operation extended beyond the city of Leicester.

In November 1997 the Trust took on responsibility for New Walk Community Project from Hastings Hostel Limited. This became part of the Day Care service with a focus on alcohol.

The bringing together of the Drug and Alcohol service was realised in March 2000 when the Drug Advice Centre, the Alcohol Advice Centre and Base 12 all moved into new premises at 96 New Walk, Leicester. This has led to increased support, improved facilities for service users and staff, better communication between the two teams and the opportunity to make better use of resources. The staffing structure was changed to enable a more balanced workload for line managers and the creation of teams to reflect specialised areas of work, an example being the Young Persons’ Drug and Alcohol team.

In March 2005 Base 12 and New Walk Community Project merged to enable the pooling of resources in order to improve the quality of service and are co-located at 29 New Walk.

LCPT’s work with excluded young people via its Youth Service underwent a review in September 2005 and a decision was taken to wind up this part of the Trust’s work in order to focus on substance use/misuse services.

From 1st July 2006 the Trust took on the management of the Anchor Centre which is a wet and dry day centre for people affected by drug and alcohol use/misuse, the majority of whom are either homeless, housed in temporary accommodation, those who have recently moved into their own tenancies and those seeking to engage in meaningful occupation.

Current work includes: