FACT

Froglife Active Conservation Team 

FACT provided young offenders with conservation sessions. During the twelve years that we worked with the young people we had many successes and we met some wonderful youngsters.  We converted many of those attending sessions into wildlife enthusiasts and certainly most into having a far greater appreciation of our natural environment.

Froglife’s partnership with Peterborough City Council Youth Offending Services started in 2006 and was made official with a competitively tendered contract, won by Froglife in 2010. All young offenders given a reparation order (community service) were referred to Froglife to undertake outdoor nature focused sessions.  In 2018 the terms of the contract changed and Froglife felt that it would no longer be able to deliver high quality sessions benefitting both young people and wildlife, and we opted not to tender for the new contract. Here are some of the FACT achievements:

Quotes and success stories:

“I have just been speaking to a case worker and she was telling me what a great service you were running.  She said that a lot of DDS clients had been engaged with Froglife and valued it highly.”

Shirley Knights
Commissioning Officer
Strategy, Commissioning and Prevention (Peterborough City Council)

One ex young offender valued her sessions with Froglife so much that a couple of years after finishing her reparation, she contacted Froglife to ask if her brother, who was going off the rails, could join a Froglife project to help him get back on track. She again contacted us several years later to ask if we could deliver sessions at her daughter’s nursery school. 

We also offered sessions to young people at risk of offending, this was an additional service beyond the scope of the contract, but proved to be valuable in averting young people from crime. 

MN: After doing carpentry activities on sessions making wildlife homes he signed up to do a carpentry course at college

Two volunteers won awards for the outstanding work they did.  

SC: Overcame her fear of wildlife when she encountered a great crested newt on the allotment. She subsequently gave a talk to her school year about the work that she did with Froglife.

RT: Enjoyed building the outdoor classroom so much that he returned in his own time to finish it.

One of our volunteers worked on the project right from the beginning, giving 12 years of service. 

We often secured smaller grants to help and support the project. These would be donors who cannot fund statutory work, but wanted to support Froglife per se to continue delivering this impactful project.  

Froglife was asked to give training to the Cambridge Reparation Service provider after the Cambridge Commissioner visited the project. 

RH: Had a lengthy period of reparation and had anger issues and learning disabilities. After a rocky start RH started to really engage and on completion of her order she returned as a volunteer.

SK: had a very positive attitude throughout his sessions and completed numerous tasks including scrub clearance at two nature reserves, making a willow fence, fixing a sparrow nest box to the office wall, building a barn owl nest box and undertaking grass snake surveys.