Blitzin' squad

It is the Easter holiday and the second day of the new intake for Richmond Housing Partnership's Paintbrush Initiative. The scheme, first launched in February 2003, sees local teenagers clean up and take care of their estates every Saturday in return for vouchers they can spend in high-street shops.

The aim, says Brian Burton, RHP's estate services manager, is to tackle antisocial behaviour after it has happened and at source by encouraging teenagers to take responsibility for their neighbourhoods.

After the first scheme last year, four boys got jobs as assistant caretakers for RHP. But since then, the graffiti has started creeping back, so the project is being run for a second year. In fact, it's been expanded to another three of the association's estates.

It would be hard to find a better evangelist for RHP's efforts to tackle antisocial behaviour than 19-year-old Daniel Seelhoff. By the time he was 18, Seelhoff had dropped out of college and had been arrested several times for graffiti and casual vandalism. He was, in his own words, "going down the drain". But for the past year, Seelhoff has held down a job as assistant caretaker for RHP and has just been promoted to a full caretaker role.

Now he wants to give something back by overseeing some of this year's Paintbrush sessions. "I could have been in jail now if I hadn't joined the scheme," he says. "My mates were all laughing when I became a caretaker, but I thought, 'so what, I'm getting money'. Now lots of them want to do it because they've seen I've got money. I can do whatever I want, I can go on holiday, I'm learning to drive – the world is my oyster."

The beginning
After talking to adult tenants, Burton identified certain youngsters thought to be "troublemakers" and directly invited them to join the scheme. This didn't always work, but posters on the estate and word of mouth convinced many of them to turn up. Most are in their early teens and although Burton might suspect some of them of antisocial behaviour, none has been the subject of a behaviour order and many have never been in trouble of any kind.

Each teenager is paid £15 in vouchers, which can be used at a large number of high-street stores, for the work they do every Saturday – it amounts to four or five hours every week. For most of them, the vouchers are the lure, but Burton says he wants to do more than just clean up buildings: he wants to create "positive peer pressure" to stop graffiti coming back.

He began, last year, by trying to make the teenagers feel empowered and asking them what was wrong with their estates. "They said, 'There's graffiti'. We said, 'Who did that?' and there were a few wry smiles. But their complete list of what was wrong with the place mirrored what other residents said."

Seelhoff admits that he and his friends were sceptical when they first got involved with the scheme. "We thought, 'They're doing this to sweeten us up'. We said, 'The funding will fall through for the project and then things are only going to get worse'."

Normally younger kids see the older ones misbehaving, so I think the scheme is brilliant for changing that 

Julia Whitford, Jenner Hall Community Association

But he went along with it for the money and was just getting into it when Burton surprised him with some news: "They told us we could go further and apply for jobs at the association and they would give us references and help us with jobs skills. You're thinking, 'How else am I going to get a reference?'"

As he talks, one of this year's participants flings his spade down and starts running off. He comes back after being called, but the boundaries have been tested. There are a few more attempted "walk outs" while we're there, but Seelhoff sees these revolts as indicative of the sort of energy that needs to be harnessed. "They can't stay still, they get restless," he says. "These kids are motivated, but they can't sit down for more than 10 minutes." To avoid this becoming a problem, tasks are frequently changed round.

The results
Burton says the area changed after the first scheme and no graffiti turned up at all on the Meres estate for six months. Even now that it has surfaced again, none of the tags – graffiti signatures – of the scheme members has appeared on RHP estates.

There is also evidence that the youngsters are exerting that peer pressure over a wider circle of people: just after Christmas, for example, a new group moved into the area and the graffiti started up again. Burton says: "One of the kids said, 'We'll get that sorted', and it went."

Julia Whitford is the chair of nearby Jenner Hall Community Association. She has helped supervise the scheme since the start and encourages her sons to take part in it. Burton's peer influence theory works well, she says: "They're very territorial – if they see their friends doing anything, they'll tell them to stop – and the eight- to 11-year-old group sees what's going on here. Normally the younger ones see the older ones misbehaving, so I think RHP is absolutely brilliant for changing that here for the kids."

Burton stresses it's "not a youth club" and he is quite prepared to get tough if needed. Each teenager signs a pledge to give up any antisocial behaviour at all times, to stick to their hours and to follow rules like not eating, smoking or being aggressive while "at work". There is a "traffic light" warnings system and offenders are banned from the scheme. Last year four youngsters were excluded, but one was so keen to be taken back that he worked two Saturdays for free.

Whitford and Burton know some kids won't be changed by the scheme. "It's not a panacea," says Burton. "It's only going to work with low-level antisocial behaviour." And it doesn't seem to work so well with girls: there were three on the Meres scheme last year, but none this year. With this in mind, RHP has been talking to local girls about other activities they might get involved in, such as dance classes.

As for the future, the teenagers can do training in completing applications forms, mock interviews, and five people have been sponsored to do an eight-week British Institute of Cleaning Science course. And with 60 assistant caretaker posts across RHP's 8000 properties, there are quite a few job opportunities, for which the Paintbrush participants are encouraged to apply.