A TEAM of "street pastors" are targeting teenagers hanging around city housing estates in a bid to show them the error of their ways.
Workers from Morningside Baptist Church have chosen well-known hang-outs for gangs of young people in Bruntsfield, Morningside, Greenbank, Oxgangs and Colinton Mains.
Over the coming months, they hope to befriend the youngsters and act as a "po
sitive adult influence" on their lives.
The aim is to help the teenagers with any problems they have, and give them someone to talk to.
The church's youth pastor Scott Burton, 24, believes there are a lot of young people who don't have someone to turn to. He hopes he and his team can change that.
He also believes that offering support to youngsters will help them make the right choices and could even prevent depressed youngsters committing suicide.
Mr Burton, who studied youth work at the International Christian College in Glasgow, said: "Life can get really difficult for young people and they can tend to do things that aren't helpful like start drinking or taking drugs.
"It can even lead to suicide, and we would hope that offering support to young people would stop it getting to that stage.
"We are just looking to bring a positive adult influence to their lives because a lot of children don't have that positive adult support.
"We believe young people need people to talk to and we want to help young people reach their full potential."
The Street Team volunteers have been going out to the popular hang-outs for the past month and have already met around 50 youngsters.
At first, they may do little more than walk past groups of teens or say hello. Over time, the idea is that the teenagers will talk to them and come to them if they have any issues they want to discuss.
Two weeks ago, they befriended a group of young people and said they told them that if they hadn't been talking to the volunteers, they would have been harassing people to buy them alcohol.
Volunteers have been put through training, and have received advice and support from the police, who know exactly which routes they use on their Friday night outings as a security measure.
The Street Team project is funded through the church, which has invested £1500 for equipment and training.
Mr Burton says he knows people will be wary of the church's involvement, but he said: "We want to build trust within the community.
"We're not going out with an agenda and we're not forcing the church on to anybody. We're just responding to the young people, getting to know what life is like for them, giving ideas and finding out what they'd like to see happen."
The full article contains 471 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
