Celebrating 30 years of King’s Trust collaboration
National celebrations for The King’s Trust’s 50th anniversary extended to Teesside, where the Education Training Collective (Etc.) is marking its own mighty milestone.
Former students, friends, and colleagues, past and present, gathered at Stockton Riverside College for an exhibition of memories and memorabilia to celebrate 30 years as a delivery partner of the national charity.
“Genuinely it is not an understatement to say this programme changed my life,” said former student Johnathon, who originally from Middlesbrough, travelled from his now home in London to join the occasion, some 23 years after completing the programme.
Vicky, who was last year named winner of the Tesco Education Award at The King’s Trust and TK Maxx and Homesense England Country Finals, said: “The course and the supportive teachers helped build my confidence and grow as a person.”
Clocking up almost 25 years as part of the team at Stockton Riverside College herself, the college group’s King’s Trust head of department, Gillian Hutchinson, is still regularly stunned by what the young people achieve.
She said: “In those 30 years the one thing that has stayed the same is the course’s ability to transform lives.”
The college group delivers King’s Trust Team and Achieve programmes at locations across the region, helping young people build life skills that will ultimately shape their future direction.
For Vicky, 22, from Stockton, that led to now pursuing a career in counselling, she is also now a King’s Trust young ambassador.
Having faced her own mental health challenges, she explained that she wants to be the person she would have needed when she was struggling most.
Of the Achieve programme, she said: “It helped me believe in myself and figure out the path I wanted to go down.”
Dad-of-two Johnathon remains grateful for the opportunities he was given by the then Prince’s Trust.
He said: “It gave me the start I needed to move on, and in all honesty, it has provided everything that is good in my life.”
Getting into trouble at 19, it was his probation officer at the time that directed him to the programme. He said: “I was an idiot, but I was given an opportunity, and it totally turned my life around.”
Keen to help others, Johnathon went on to become an assistant Team leader and then a Team leader at Stockton Riverside College, before moving on to work directly for The Prince’s Trust in London.
Today he is an assistant director in local government, helping to tackle some of the complex issues facing young people and communities, including serious youth violence and radicalisation.
Also covering the miles to attend the exhibition was Stephen Armitage, who set up and fronted the first ever Prince’s Trust Team programme at Stockton Riverside College in 1996.
He said: “It’s wonderful to be back. I have travelled from Canada and I would do that again, if given the opportunity, just to see the past and present staff and the fact the programme is still going strong.”
Attending the exhibition on behalf of the King was the Lord Lieutenant of County Durham, Mike Butterwick CBE.
Paying tribute to the charity’s 50 years and the college’s 30-year partnership, he said: “The King’s Trust is the King’s personal charity that he created 50 years ago, and it is one of the most extraordinary charities. It genuinely changes people’s lives.
“Everybody has potential, but they sometimes need to be helped to find that potential, to find that self-esteem and find that confidence, and the programmes The King’s Trust runs are just magnificent at doing exactly that.”
The Education Training Collective delivers 12-week King’s Trust Team programmes in Stockton, Redcar, Middlesbrough, Darlington and Bishop Auckland, and full-time Achieve courses at Stockton Riverside College and Redcar and Cleveland College. To find out more visit: www.stockton.ac.uk/study/kings-trust/
