Article appeared in The Philip Lawrence Awards Magazine 2006 

Philip Lawrence Award saves TNT from closure

Teen Network Torbay (TNT) members are the voice of young people in Torbay, helping to develop and promote the rights of young people. Before winning a Philip Lawrence Award in 2005, they were threatened with closure as the Children’s Society was reviewing their funding. However, with the status gained from winning the award and the increased publicity, the Children’s Society agreed to fund another worker, helping the project continue and develop.

Winning the award has had a huge impact on the young people and their self esteem. It has helped the project get a much higher profile in the south west area from local press coverage, and given the young people a sense of purpose in what they are doing. The project has grown and developed. TNT are working in partnership with Save the Communities in Torbay to develop a consultation for other young people. They have developed multi-media activities, and visited youth centres, pupil referral units and schools. TNT consulted 300 young people, and gathered ideas about personal safety, the environment and bullying which have been fed back to Save the Communities who have made a commitment to continue working with them when developing the resulting projects.