Through practical support including training, mentoring and financial assistance, it helps 14-30 year-olds to realise their potential and transform their lives.

The Trust focuses its efforts on young people who struggle at school, are in or leaving care, are long-term unemployed or have been in trouble with the law.

Since the charity was founded by HRH The Prince of Wales in 1976, it has helped nearly half a million young people.

Through our work we aim to combat:

Ø social exclusion and unemployment;
Ø youth crime and anti-social behaviour;
Ø educational underachievement and low basic skills, and
Ø disengagement and truancy.
Through our work we aim to promote:

Ø citizenship and respect
Ø financial independence and practical skills
Ø self esteem and motivation
Ø community regeneration
The Prince's Trust has national reach, delivering practical solutions at a local level. We are committed to quality, we enable young people to overcome barriers and we are enterprising in our approach.• The Trust supported more than 33,000 young people last year. We supported:

Ø 13,269 unemployed young people;
Ø 10,907 educational underachievers;
Ø 2,658 offenders/ex offenders;
Ø 2,128 with a care background.
In 2002/3 our core work helped:

Ø 4,359 young people start their own business. Ongoing support was provided to 8,210 young people;
Ø 5,600 young people at risk of exclusion through the 467 xl clubs operating in schools throughout the UK. An estimated 76% of young people are in employment, training or education after being supported by The Prince's Trust. Currently we have 9,000 young people at risk of exclusion in 800 xl clubs across 513 schools in the UK, and in 2005 we aim to be helping 12,000 through 1000 clubs.
Since 1983 nearly 58,000 young people have set up their own businesses with the support of The Prince's Trust 55% of the businesses that we help start up are still trading into their third year - a figure that compares favourably with commercial loans to "less risky" start-ups. Many of the businesses we start-up have been refused funding from elsewhere..