Teen Challenge Strathclyde

Teen Challenge was founded in 1958 by David Wilkerson in New York City, USA. The story of his interaction with street gangs and addicts in the city is documented in the best selling book, ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’. Residential centres that offered structured help for young people with addictions were soon opened and the organisation began to spread across the USA.

Teen Challenge UK is a charity registered and operates nationally to help young people who have developed life controlling problems, especially drug and alcohol addictions, and also to offer preventative help to those who may be in danger of doing so. Teen Challenge UK started in the late Seventies and now works in fifteen locations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Teen Challenge Strathclyde was started 18 years ago by Roy Lees – he saw the desperate need to help young people addicted to drugs in Strathclyde. A bus was fitted out with a kitchen and was taken to various locations around Glasgow where troubled people were able to get free food and coffee and help to overcome their addictions.

Today Teen Challenge Strathclyde has 4 buses. We now operate in 16 locations across Scotland each week. Over the years we have referred hundreds of people to residential programmes and have seen many able to live drug-free and fulfilling lives.