No Limits has been going strong since 1993, with strong links to and support from the voluntary & statutory sector, especially the PCT & Southampton City Council.

Boosted by strong local connections and knowledge, No Limits has a proactive and innovative approach to promoting their services and raising awareness of young people’s issues, for example, through school assemblies, community events and festivals, and a local young people’s magazine.

No Limits is a great example of the ‘under one roof’ model of service provision, with a holistic approach: young people don’t have to come in with a specific need - they can come in for a chat and be helped to identify and prioritise individual concerns. Their aim to provide young people across Southampton with independent, confidential and accessible high quality information, advice and support. Services include tier 2 mental health and tier 2/3 drug work. Practical support is available (access to a shower, laundry facilities, internet etc) and an intensive support service works with young people out in the community. There’s a film group, an anger management group, a youth board and Safe House – a group for young people with mental health issues.

Workers from other agencies offer specialist support and advice including a Sexual health clinic, a Housing Officer, Homeless HealthCare Team, Tier III drug support, E to E and Connexions. Young people also receive a financial health check to ensure they are making the most of their income and receiving all relevant benefits: No Limits has successfully won funding from the Big Lottery Fund for their work around money, debt and benefit issues.

‘Just talking to No Limits staff, being listened to, advice I’d never heard before. The fact it is all confidential gave me confidence to open up and explore the way I feel’.

No Limits is committed to providing good quality services: staff are trained to a high standard, with individual specialist areas - money, debt and benefit advice, drugs and alcohol support, child protection issues, domestic violence, sexual abuse, housing and NVQ 2/3 in Youth Work. No Limits holds the LSC Quality Mark, as well as Youth Access, Quads and BACP Quality Standards.

“I was living at home and I got kicked out... We started to fall in with the wrong crowd and all. It wasn’t good; we started nicking stuff.. . We went to No Limits to get a shower and food. We got asked if we wanted to talk to anyone, and originally thought no, no one could help us. Then we realised we could get help. I thought it wasn’t possible to get a job because I’d been homeless... But No Limits turned round and gave me the skills, I met new people and built up confidence and that helped me to progress to get a place to stay and a job.”

No Limits consulted young people to improve service and identify barriers to access, including opening hours. Young people described feeling daunted going to new places, family issues, and transport problems to visit No Limits centres. Saturday services were also requested. To meet this need, weekly drop in sessions are provided in schools, colleges, supported housing projects, youth clubs and community centres in addition to the three drop-in centres.

No Limits: in numbers
7,633 individual young people worked with over the past year
30 volunteers
Opened in 1993
3 branches across the city

We asked the No Limits team why Youth Access membership is valuable for them:

“Being members of Youth Access means that No Limits is able to get a national perspective on what is being delivered locally. We’re able to stay abreast of national policies and changes around information, advice and counselling work and we (staff and young people) are able to feed into the bigger picture to hopefully effect change. As an independent voluntary organisation, being under the umbrella of Youth Access gives us a shared purpose with other organisations up and down the country and access to theirs and Youth Access’ expertise around training, guidance, support as well as the all important keeping up to date with any changes that will affect our young people.”

No Limits participating in Youth Access research
Youth Access advice team workers Pam and Steve met young people at No Limits in July, in a focus group to consider some of our research findings about how young people access advice services. We asked them to consider what they want from an advice service and what their ideal experience would be. The group willingly shared views, opinions and experiences about using mainstream advice agencies, Connexions Services and No Limits. Some very useful data was collected which will inform further research. The young people were very complimentary about the services offered by No Limits and we were struck by their level of engagement with the service as well as being were grateful to the young people who took part. Our experience on the day only served to highlight the commitment and dedication of the No Limits team.

‘They’re geared up for young people, they know the kind of things that we want to know about… housing, benefit issues, maybe work.’

‘your life is quite chaotic.. so it’s ideal somewhere like here where you can drop-in whenever you want to.. Also, you can get other support from coming here.’

Click here to have a look at the No Limits website...