The Venture was established in 1978 as a multi-agency response to extraordinarily high level of juvenile crime within Caia Park in Wrexham, the second largest Council housing estate in Wales. Building a self-build adventure playground was seen as the best way of creating a sense of ownership and belonging with local children and young people who were largely alienated within their own community. Within six years, juvenile crime had been reduced by half and reduced to nil, albeit briefly, by 2008.

The last 42 years has seen The Venture gradually develop a wide range of services including an early years centre, education and environmental projects, health services, family support, youth club, student and volunteer training, sports facilities and large scale community events, but with the adventure playground still at its heart, including, most importantly, it’s open-access playwork values.

Described in Westminster by a former Secretary of State for Wales as “one of the best children’s organisations in the country, if not in Europe”, The Venture was adopted by the Welsh Government as its model for Integrated Children’s Centres across Wales and similarly in Scotland for work with substance abusing families and in England for developing adventure playgrounds.

In seeking, as our main aim, to help the 1,000+ people who use our services to achieve their true potential, we recognise that we can only rarely hope to achieve that on our own. The Venture maintains close working relationships with a wide range of local and national statutory and voluntary agencies and is constantly seeking improvements in its own work and encouraging innovative partnerships, and has been studied and much praised by six Universities, three national institutes, many funding bodies and Care Inspectorate Wales.