Berkshire Youth Trust was formed to provide an infrastructure that supports the development of youth initiatives offered by Berkshire based charities. A core focus is Berkshire Youth, a charitable organisation which has delivered high quality, efficient youth support services in the area for over 85 years – helping young people make successful transitions to adulthood.

The problems affecting young people today are a regular feature of news headlines. Knife crime, drug abuse, lack of access to quality education and skills development. Across all of this hangs the spectre of mental health concerns, complicating an already difficult landscape for millions of Britain’s young people. In this respect, sadly, Berkshire is no different. This is where our work began.

We have created Berkshire Youth Trust to raise the funding and provide the wide necessary professional skills to implement Berkshire Youth’s Inspired Facilities strategy to provide three specially refurbished buildings in:

1. Newbury
2. Reading/Wokingham
3. Slough

They will all be specifically created and designed for us to provide the safe and caring environment required by so many vulnerable local youngsters.

The first of these projects is Newbury’s Waterside Centre. A full refurbishment of the Waterside building was completed in 2024, which has subsequently provided state-of-the-art youth services since its launch. This £1.7m project has become a 24/7 hub for youth support services across the county. Our attention now turns to levelling up the offering we provide to the community. We are looking to deliver a new permanent boxing facility, to reinforce the already hugely popular Boxwise programme. Some funds have already been raised and we seek a further £150K to ensure that the project is delivered. We then move forward to our second project.

Many of the area’s leading business figures have donated money, time and resources into making this project a success, but there is more that can be done. Berkshire Youth Trust will roll out the Waterside blueprint to the other target sites. Our ‘inspired facilities’ programme is driven by the desperate need to create the right buildings and facilities, permitting us to provide joined-up youth services enabling us to support the most vulnerable of our youngsters. This will result in Berkshire Youth’s inspired facilities programme becoming a pioneer and beacon for cutting edge youthwork in the U.K.