Our Aims
Caring Environments
Offering caring, supportive, confidential environments where young people can explore issues which are affecting their lives.
Give Advice
Providing accurate and up to date information and good advice relevant to young people's needs.
Provide Support
Enabling young people to explore options, gain skills and resources, solve problems and make informed decisions.
Create Awareness
Enabling awareness of their rights and responsibilities and to advocate for and promote children and young people’s rights
History
We set up No Limits in 1993, when a group of young people and local organisations realised that young people needed somewhere to go for information, advice and counselling. Youth Justice, Mental Health Services, the Health Authority, Social Services and the Youth Service came together, and the Shirley open access drop-in centre was born.
By 2000 we had outgrown our Shirley premises. We successfully raised funds to expand to a further 2 centres in Southampton and opened our City Centre branch in 2000 and our Sholing branch in 2001.
In 2015 young people told us they wanted to be able access our drop-in services more often, with the same opening times every day. In December that year, the No Limits Advice Centre in central Southampton became the main hub where young people could access advice and support.
Meet the team
No Limits has a wealth of experience of working with young people. Here you will find a bit more information about some of our team.
If you want to get in touch with any of our trustees or managers, you will find their contact details in this section.
Find out more
No Limits Trading
In 2018, No Limits launched the social enterprise No Limits Trading. Using the charity’s expertise in youth work, counselling and voluntary sector management, NLT offers a broad range of counselling, group work and accredited training and consultancy for individuals, schools, companies and charities.
Through these chargeable services, No Limits trading brings in secure funding for No Limits, ensuring that the charity can continue to support children and young people in Southampton and Hampshire.
Find out more
Breakout Youth
No Limits hosts Breakout Youth, an independent charity for young people in Hampshire aged 11 to 21 (up to 25 if additional needs are identified) who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender or unsure of their gender or sexual identity.
Breakout Youth offers confidential one to one support and weekly social groups that meet at safe locations in Hampshire.
Breakout Youth
Mia's story
Mia came to the Advice Centre with her mum, having heard about us through a friend. She had left her mum’s house six months ago to live with her dad, but he was never there – returning only for an hour in the evening and another hour in the morning, spending the rest of his time with his other family. Mia was understandably very lonely, had been self-harming every night but hadn’t told anyone.
Our youth worker built a trusting relationship with Mia so that she could speak honestly about how she felt. She was referred for counselling and No Limits talked to her school who provided her with a student support worker. Mia has moved back in with her mum and is doing really well, she pops into the Advice Centre when she needs some additional emotional support.
Information for professionals
All our services are confidential and free to young people. With the support of volunteers, local partnerships and dedicated staff we helped over 7,000 thousand young people last year.
We work to a model of good practice supported by Youth Access (the national membership organisation for Youth Information, Advice and Counselling services), promoting rights-based information, advice and support. We offer quick and easy access to specialist help through our drop–in provision, backed up by our specialist services. This enables us to help young people holistically offering them support ‘under one roof.’
All our services strive to safeguard the welfare of children and young people to the highest standard. We aim to involve children and young people in the planning, delivery and evaluation of all our services.
In 2015, we won the ‘Advice and Guidance Award’ in the Children and Young People Now Awards. In 2013 we won a prestigious GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT Award for our outstanding contribution to improving the health and wellbeing of young people in Southampton and in 2017 were one of only four previous winners to be awarded a place on the GSK IMPACT Leaders programme, to pioneer new approaches to care, share learning and bring parts of the health and care sector together.
Accounts and Annual Reports
