A MENTAL HEALTH campaigner and charity ambassador from Calne is pushing for there to be more on offer for children to get them off the streets.

Kiana James recently became an ambassador for Respect Yourself, a charity focused on giving advice to young people who may be struggling with bullying, peer pressure, abuse and mental health, helping them to make their own decisions.

The 42-year-old wants use her ambassador skills to help youngsters and create a place in the town they can go and express themselves.

Having had an extremely traumatic childhood, and being put into care at a young age, she believes she understands that children have a lot of emotions, which sometimes become anti-social behaviour.

“I want to contribute and make changes, so I am trying to set up a scheme for kids to express their anger and creativity.

“When a kid is on the street they are more vulnerable to bullying and peer pressure.

“Often there is so much more going on underneath and they shouldn’t be without the support.”

The work Miss James is doing has the backing of PCSO Mark Cook.

He said: “Anything that helps children with their mental health and giving them something positive to do with their town is great.

“Calne has in the past suffered with a great deal of youth-related anti-social behaviour and it has got significantly better over the last few years so we want to keep it that way.

“Anything in the community I am supportive of.”

Miss James is now looking into setting up a group, called Creative Place, where youngsters can be creative and express their emotions.

She hopes it will stop children and teens hanging out on the street and taking part in anti-social behaviour, by giving them somewhere to be creative with art, graffiti and music.

“One of the biggest things for me is for people to have somewhere to go to express themselves,” she said. “I want to improve this community massively and put my knowledge and experiences into use.”