The St Ives Duke of Edinburgh group started in the early 1990s as a very small youth group. In 1996 the coordinator left suddenly, leaving a group of seven young people at Bronze level without a leader.
The current coordinator , Tracy Grant, took on the group and has been running the award in St Ives since then. She brought the group into St Ives Youth and Community department at St Ivo School, and has gradually built up the group up to over 100 young people operating at Bronze, Silver and Gold level each year.
In the early part of this century St Ivo School decided to keep the Community education department within the school , but handed the running of the Youth Work elements back to Cambs County Council to fund and manage.
From that point the group moved back to Broad Leas centre in St Ives, with the full support of the St Ives Locality Youth team. A few years later Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) Youth Services underwent a restructure bringing in significant cuts to funding of general youth provision.
CCC currently only funds youth provision for disadvantaged young people. The group was yet again under threat of closure. The strong team of volunteers and the DofE coordinator decided to reform the group as an independent self funding DofE Youth Group with a small group of trustees. The group continues to grow year on year and completion rates amongst the young people at St Ives are amongst the highest in the County.
The group and the coordinator continue to work in partnership with the locality youth team, and St Ivo School have kindly agreed to collect fees from St Ivo participants at our group on our behalf.
We continue to operate as an independent self funding group and hope to do so for the foreseeable future.
The current coordinator , Tracy Grant, took on the group and has been running the award in St Ives since then. She brought the group into St Ives Youth and Community department at St Ivo School, and has gradually built up the group up to over 100 young people operating at Bronze, Silver and Gold level each year.
In the early part of this century St Ivo School decided to keep the Community education department within the school , but handed the running of the Youth Work elements back to Cambs County Council to fund and manage.
From that point the group moved back to Broad Leas centre in St Ives, with the full support of the St Ives Locality Youth team. A few years later Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) Youth Services underwent a restructure bringing in significant cuts to funding of general youth provision.
CCC currently only funds youth provision for disadvantaged young people. The group was yet again under threat of closure. The strong team of volunteers and the DofE coordinator decided to reform the group as an independent self funding DofE Youth Group with a small group of trustees. The group continues to grow year on year and completion rates amongst the young people at St Ives are amongst the highest in the County.
The group and the coordinator continue to work in partnership with the locality youth team, and St Ivo School have kindly agreed to collect fees from St Ivo participants at our group on our behalf.
We continue to operate as an independent self funding group and hope to do so for the foreseeable future.
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