THE founder of the pioneering West Devon-based C-FAR organisation this week announced an action plan which he hopes will spark a phoenix-like rise from financial crisis. C-FAR, the charity which has spent five years providing rehabilitation for young male adult offenders, was forced into voluntary liquidation last month due to poor cash flows. Trainees at the Burdon Grange centre at Highampton were advised they had to leave and 57 staff were made redundant ? the building has since gone on the market for £950,000. Now Trevor Philpott, C-FAR?s chief executive and founder, says he and three other members of the organisation?s management team have set themselves a three-month target to resurrect the project through a new company. The four will work voluntarily during this time, in a desperate attempt to keep the ideals of C-FAR alive. Mr Philpott said the company had been ?simply amazed? by the level of support for C-FAR, following news the centre had to close. He said: ?We knew that the programme worked and that, as a consequence of their efforts, former trainees were now forging new lives. ?Notwithstanding, we had not really appreciated just how widespread the support was. It is clear that society is not as punitive as some tabloid newspapers would have us believe ? instead, people are increasingly demanding a system that is effective in promoting meaningful change.? The C-FAR programme involved an intensive, eleven-week residential course of personal development, education and social,/life skills training for ex-offenders, following by a minimum of nine months through care support in the community. Mr Philpott said many people now recognised that punishment only served to perpetuate the type of behaviour for which it had been ordered. C-FAR had been convinced of the need to be brave and act differently to create change. ?As a result of the support, we are now attempting to re-establish the programme and the centre. Because none of us have any private income, we have decided to give three months to the work,? said Mr Philpott. ?After that, if we are not successful in establishing a strong financial base for the new charity, we will have to find other employment, in order to pay our respective mortgages and domestic bills.? Mr Philpott said the new organisation, provisionally called ?Life Change?, was ?absolutely clear? it needed a more appropriate level of funding from the criminal justice system than had been given C-FAR ? otherwise the same situation would occur again. ?We are not prepared to put the staff and the trainees through such a traumatic experience again.? Mr Philpott said the management team was working from home, using e-mail and telephones to get Life Change off the ground. Many small donations had been received and a rescue fund had been established to meet administrative costs. He said the new challenge felt as though he was stepping back in time to when he first set up C-FAR in 1997, except this time, the support was far more widespread and C-FAR?s success over the last five years had been clearly recognised. Many national, regional and local meetings have taken place with the private, statutory and voluntary sectors and letters have been sent to the prime minister and home secretary. Mr Philpott said although he could not say who had been involved in the meetings so far, he and the rest of the Life Change team were confident the C-FAR programme would once again rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes. Anyone interested in supporting Life Change or who would like more information should e-mail Trevor Philpott at [email protected]">[email protected] or [email protected]">[email protected]