A CHARITY which helps children on the verge of being expelled is facing closure.

Ten-year-old charity Stepping Forward runs a service called Take 5 for 11 to 14-year-olds to stop them going off the rails.

But its manager Pauline Barnes said schools no longer have cash to send teens to the £500 per child service because the council has top-sliced funds. The charity, which employs 10 staff, including a youth worker, teacher, teaching assistants, drug worker and sexual exploitation worker, is due to close on December 8.

Mrs Barnes said: “Our work can turn young people’s lives around if they embrace the programme. I feel proud when young people come back and say: ‘Without your help, I wouldn’t be here.’ When I look at them and see they are alive, I feel emotional.”

The Whitbourne Avenue-based service used to provide drug drop-in sessions and education in the past but most recently has been focusing on children who schools are considering expelling. It started running the 20-day Take 5 course promoting self esteem, personal and social skills last year.

Mrs Barnes believes money that would have went to Stepping Forward has gone to the Youth Education Project (YEP), which has failed a recent Ofsted inspection.

Mrs Barnes said: “I feel we have been sold down the river. The council has asked us to deliver Take 5 but the money has gone to YEP.

“The staff are angry and upset. They are beginning to feel let down.”

Mark Taggart, 27, who used the service as a teenager has collected more than 1000 signatures protesting at the charity’s closure, which he has handed to the council.

He said: “I used to get counselling at Stepping Forward, as I was abused when I was younger. I never did my exams but I got an education here .

“The staff have helped so many people. It makes me laugh that the council doesn’t want to keep something worthwhile going – something that has helped hundreds of people over the years.”

A Swindon Council spokeswoman confirmed the council had commissioned the charity to provide education for the YEP and to deliver Take 5 in 2008.

She said: “In the first year of the YEP, we took the decision to stop the arrangement with Stepping Forward following internal reorganisation at the council, which meant we could bring staff at Stepping Forward into the council to manage the project from August 2009.

“The Take 5 project was started in September 2008 with the first course taking place in November 2008. Each place on the course included a charge to the school that referred the pupil, and although we subsidised this cost the level of referral fell. The Stepping Forward board therefore took the decision that the programme was not viable.

“All action taken by the council has been in line with guidance provided by the DCSF.”