Wasted was a project which worked with a group of students at risk of exclusion from school. They looked at issues around drugs and alcohol and how these related to juvenile crime – the group members were considered to be at risk of offending. The group designed a series of peer education postcards and photostories which were put up on the YouthWeb Internet site. The cards aimed to raise awareness about the effects on young people of isssues such as substance misuse and car crime.

Here’s what the Apex youth worker had to say about the benefits of the project: "This young person has been heavily involved in crime and has been excluded from school. They have low levels of achievement, concentration and social skills. With the Soft Touch project they have started to settle down and their social behaviour has developed massively".

The Wasted project worked in partnership with Apex Leicester and received financial support from the Unit for the Arts and Offenders and the National Lottery.

Soft Touch and Leicester City Education Department’s Individual Learning Centre were awarded partnership funding from Youth Music to run two years of music making activities with excluded pupils. The programme engaged disaffected pupils through music, enabling them to learn and achieve and open up progression routes for the future. A trainee worked alongside Soft Touch’s music workers to deliver the sessions. This provided an in-depth, supported opportunity for a young man, Troy, who had been excluded from school himself. It allowed him to get valuable work experience and work towards an NVQ qualification.

Troy is clear about why the programme worked: "It takes them away from a school-like environment. It allows them to be more free - they don’t need to put on a front to show off, they are more bothered about communicating and learning. They are young people who are labelled as disruptive but there’s been no messing about on this project - they know what they can and can’t do and they enjoy coming".