What is Outreach ? 
Watch this short video for first hand information. 
 
Targetted at the 13-15 year age bracket nominations are invited each November for the following year. Nominations can however be made at any time. 
 
ACF Outreach aims to help crime vulnerable and socially disengaged young people become responsible citizens, by using adventurous and challenging activities to raise their self-esteem, build confidence and broaden their perspective on what they can achieve with their lives.  
 
Youngsters who volunteer to come to a project have had limited opportunities in life. There can be a problem in their own local community and family due to anti social behaviour. Typically, they may be lacking self esteem; have levels of school truancy or have been excluded from school; many have already come to police attention or are socially excluded.  
 
Equally they may have been a victim of crime, or just require their self esteem being given a boost.  
 
 
Participants are selected for the project in conjunction with Police Schools Officers, from four academies each year. The project aims to guide and help these young people to realise that there is another `route' they can take and that, with encouragement and determination, they can achieve targets that they believed once were unobtainable. 
Outreach uses adventurous and challenging activities to raise the self esteem of these young people; to build confidence, give them a positive purpose and assist them in realising their full potential. Through acknowledgement and praise, young volunteers on the programme soon realise that the recognition received is in itself rewarding and that their achievements, however small, are worthwhile.  
  
Vital to the success of ACF Outreach is the use of positive role models, the cadets already in the Cadet Force , ACF's volunteer Adult Staff and Officers from the Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group. The activities take place in Brecon, South Wales, in challenging countryside offering a wide variety of activities. 
 
 
ACF Outreach has been running for 18 years and there is a great deal of evidence of how it has helped young people - particularly in building their confidence and preventing them from becoming involved with crime, or simply dropping out of the school system. An independent NACRO audit report was very positive on the results that the project produced in Wales. 
 
Financed by the Army Cadet Force Association and staffed by by ACF volunteers and Police looking after the young people on the project.